APPLETON, WIS. — One-time leftist ideologue turned conservative political activist David Horowitz discusses student rights and the importance of intellectual diversity on college campuses in an address at Lawrence University.
Horowitz presents “Academic Freedom and the War on Terror,” Wednesday, Feb. 21 at 7 p.m. in Youngchild Hall, Room 121. The event is free and open to the public.
An outspoken opponent of censorship and racial preferences, Horowitz was one of the founders of the “New Left” in the 1960s and served as the editor of “Ramparts,” the movement’s largest magazine. Disillusionment with the leftist movement led Horowitz to embrace a conservative philosophy.
In 1988, he created the Center for the Study of Popular Culture, renamed the David Horowitz Freedom Center last July. The center promotes the principles of individual freedom, limited government and academic freedom in American schools. It also publishes “FrontPageMagazine.com,” an online journal featuring conservative columnists Ann Coulter and Andrew Sullivan and libertarian talk show host Larry Elder.
Four years ago, Horowitz turned his attention to American college campuses, founding Students for Academic Freedom (SAF), which has grown to 200 college chapters nationwide, He also wrote a piece of model legislation he called the “Academic Bill of Rights,” which outlined ways to protect students from partisan politics and broaden academic freedom in the classroom.” In July, 2006, Temple University became the country’s first university to adopt a policy ensuring students with academic freedom rights.
Horowitz has written more than a dozen books, including his 1997 autobiography “Radical Son,” which chronicles his own political journey from “red-diaper baby” to conservative activist, “Uncivil Wars,” which explores intolerance and racial McCarthyism on college campuses and “The Art of Political War” in 2000, which Republican political strategist Karl Rove hailed as “the perfect guide to winning on the political battlefield.”
Earlier in his career, Howowitz teamed with Peter Collier to write a series of best-selling biographies on several iconic American families, including the Rockefellers, Kennedys, Fords and Roosevelts. Horowitz and Collier also co-wrote the 1989 book “Destructive Generation: Second Thoughts About the Sixties.”
A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1978, Horowitz was recognized by President Reagan in 1990 with the Teach Freedom Award.
He earned a bachelor’s degree in English from Columbia University and a master’s degree from the University of California, Berkeley.
Horowitz appearance is sponsored by the student organization Viking Conservatives and the Young America’s Foundation.
