Horowitz calls students "braindead"
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| Also listed in: Horowitz Watch | Campus Progress Blog |
Speaking at Penn State to hock his new book last week, David Horowitz got a bit more of the sweet stuff he trolls the countryside searching for - attention.
"A lot of you are getting indoctrinated in a lot of classes at this university," he told the crowd. Presumably, Horowitz was referring to classes taught by Professors Sam Richards and Michael Berube - two Penn State professors who managed to make Horowitz's list of the 101 most dangerous academics in America. (As usual, Horowitz's chapters on these professors are filled with distortions and manipulations - check out the CP-supported coalition Free Exchange on Campus's fact-check of the chapters on Richards and Berube for more).
A crowd of Free Exchange students showed up to the event with t-shirts that said "David Horowitz: we can think for ourselves." Horowitz apparently believes otherwise - the solutions he's pushing are based on the premise that students are incapable of engaging with controversial ideas, thinking critically about them, and deciding what they believe in for themselves. His mis-named "Academic Bill of Rights" is an attempt to impose a new political correctness on America's classrooms, where students can cry "foul" every time they feel the slightest bit offended by anything any professor ever says or does. Horowitz claims he's campaigning for "traditional" academic standards - as if colleges and universities weren't traditionally dedicated to exploring controversial ideas and alternative viewpoints.
But I digress. If further proof of Horowitz's low regard for students' intelligence was needed, he provided it in spades. During the Q&A session, Horowitz "verbally assailed" students who questioned him: "You do not have the mental capacity to understand," he told one. "You are deaf and brain-dead," he told another.
Perhaps Horowitz's intolerance for students who do not unquestioningly accept his false conclusions accounts for the fact that there were about as many students at the first national conference of his student group, Students for Academic Freedom, as there were origninal members of the Mouseketeers.
On a completely unrelated note, last summer over 700 students from all across the country came to DC for Campus Progress' first annual student conference! Reigstration for our second annual conference is now open. Barack Obama will be the keynote speaker - sign up now!
Now wait, where was I?
"A lot of you are getting indoctrinated in a lot of classes at this university," he told the crowd. Presumably, Horowitz was referring to classes taught by Professors Sam Richards and Michael Berube - two Penn State professors who managed to make Horowitz's list of the 101 most dangerous academics in America. (As usual, Horowitz's chapters on these professors are filled with distortions and manipulations - check out the CP-supported coalition Free Exchange on Campus's fact-check of the chapters on Richards and Berube for more).
A crowd of Free Exchange students showed up to the event with t-shirts that said "David Horowitz: we can think for ourselves." Horowitz apparently believes otherwise - the solutions he's pushing are based on the premise that students are incapable of engaging with controversial ideas, thinking critically about them, and deciding what they believe in for themselves. His mis-named "Academic Bill of Rights" is an attempt to impose a new political correctness on America's classrooms, where students can cry "foul" every time they feel the slightest bit offended by anything any professor ever says or does. Horowitz claims he's campaigning for "traditional" academic standards - as if colleges and universities weren't traditionally dedicated to exploring controversial ideas and alternative viewpoints.
But I digress. If further proof of Horowitz's low regard for students' intelligence was needed, he provided it in spades. During the Q&A session, Horowitz "verbally assailed" students who questioned him: "You do not have the mental capacity to understand," he told one. "You are deaf and brain-dead," he told another.
Perhaps Horowitz's intolerance for students who do not unquestioningly accept his false conclusions accounts for the fact that there were about as many students at the first national conference of his student group, Students for Academic Freedom, as there were origninal members of the Mouseketeers.
On a completely unrelated note, last summer over 700 students from all across the country came to DC for Campus Progress' first annual student conference! Reigstration for our second annual conference is now open. Barack Obama will be the keynote speaker - sign up now!
Now wait, where was I?
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