Tensions mounted in the Michigan League Ballroom last night when conservative author David Horowitz made another appearance at the University in order to, as he was introduced, “combat the predominant ethos” of liberalism here.
- Paul Wong
- ELISE BERGMAN/Daily
David Horowitz, editor of FrontPage magazine, speaks in the Michigan League Ballroom yesterday about his opposition to affirmative action.
“There is no more benighted and harassed minority on campus than conservatives,” Horowitz said. “On the University of Michigan campus, Republicans are as rare as unicorns.”
He went on to say that most, if not all of the University’s professors are Democrats, and that this impairs students’ learning environment. Michigan Review Editor in Chief James Justin Wilson said he shares this sentiment.
“I don’t know a single professor here who is happily Republican. I’ve been here for four years, and believe me, I’ve been looking,” Wilson said. “The political spectrum at this University goes from moderate to socialist or Marxist or communist.”
Horowitz “put in his two cents” regarding the University’s race-conscious admissions policies, which he said are attempting to solve a problem with education too late in a child’s academic career.
“It is the result of the certain inability of some races to score well on these tests. We must ask ourselves why this is,” he said. “Who is responsible for this? Who is running these schools? You all know the answer. In Detroit, 100 percent of the officials are Democrats.”
“People who talk about leveling the playing field are selling snake oil. The playing field will never ever ever be equal,” he added.
“One thing Martin Luther King said in a speech they don’t talk about much was, ‘because we are black and because we are disadvantaged, we must work twice as hard.'” Horowitz also touched on American resistance to the war in Iraq, saying that a united home front is the key to success. He recalled many historic dissenters, like “Jane Fonda, who visited this University in 1973 and said that if Americans understood what communism was, they would fall down on their knees and pray for it. Blithering idiots in Hollywood are nothing new.”
Representatives from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People also attended the event, and said that he must be listened to cautiously. “He brings up a lot of good points, but … he also brings up a lot of half-truths. He tends to tell half the story,” Chris Cunningham, second vice president of the NAACP, said. “There are many points I agree with him on. The Detroit public school system is in dire need of new administration and better funding. However, pointing the finger at (the Left) and Democrats won’t solve the problem.”
Although they butt heads on certain issues, Cunningham, an LSA sophomore, said it is good for the University to have Horowitz visit.
“You know what, although a lot of his views are unpopular, it’s very, very valuable to our community as a whole. … If he and I were actually able to converse, and I was able to point out these aspects, and maybe bring those other aspects and the opposite view to him in the correct manner, it might open his eyes, because he opened my eyes to a couple of things,” Cunningham said.