Horror for Horowitz

It’s a cabal!!!

Wednesday’s Inside Higher Ed reported some bad news for right-wing writer David Horowitz: From Bad to Worse for David Horowitz:

A week ago, it looked like David Horowitz had a few things to be thankful for in the emerging report of the Pennsylvania legislative panel that was looking for examples of violations of students’ rights because of their political views.

Sure, the committee had reported that it didn’t really find examples of the alleged oppression that he maintains is widespread. But Horowitz pointed to the committee’s recommendation that colleges adopt policies to protect student rights. And he liked the many pages included in the draft report that summarized testimony by Horowitz and some of his allies. Those are all gone in the final version of the report the committee approved Tuesday, which is being hailed by academic groups as completely vindicating their views.

Horowitz said that he was furious about the “breathtaking audacity of this theft of the report by the Democrats and the unions,” and that a “cabal” of faculty leaders had convinced “weak-spined Republicans” (who controlled the committee) to go along with the “theft.”….

…By removing all the pages summarizing testimony (a summary that many college officials believed was one-sided in favor of Horowitz), the committee removed a permanent record that seemed unfavorable and many thought unfair to academe. And because the final vote on the report was unanimous — on a committee controlled by Republicans — the committee made it more difficult for Horowitz to blame his problems on liberals.

…Asked how he could claim victory [as he had, recently] when the legislative panel had worked so hard to identify student victims, and failed, Horowitz offered more stories of students who were being hurt. He said that he had spoken to a dance student who was upset about her paper’s grade and that he had encouraged her to file a grievance. She didn’t want to. Horowitz acknowledged that there was no political issue in the paper, but said her reluctance to go through the grievance machinery showed the problems that students face.

Then Horowitz said that he had heard that a political science professor at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania, Diana Zoelle, had given a test in which students were forced to explain why the war in Iraq is wrong, with the implication that their grade would be lower if they did not back that position. Horowitz acknowledged that he had not checked out the report, although Zoelle reported that she has been hearing from others that Horowitz has been speaking about the alleged exam.

Reached while en route to her Thanksgiving vacation, Zoelle said that Horowitz was “absolutely incorrect.” She said that Horowitz and his staff never called to ask her about the exam, although she asked around when she heard that he was telling people about some complaint about her. She said that she has never used a test question about the Iraq war.…

…Horowitz, asked why he couldn’t document more of the cases of students being hurt — the basis of his movement — said: “Why do I have to run around the country finding these kids?”

SOCCCD Trustee Tom Fuentes is a “director” of Eagle Publishing, and Eagle Publishing is the parent company of Regnery Publishing, which publishes various titles, including those hostile to Darwin—and, of course, to liberals. Prime example: Horowtiz's The Professors.

See “Kill it & Grill it” and other Fuenteian titles.

Relevant DtB posts:
● Horowitz nearly creamed
● Tasering guys in the butt
● Horowitz’s Academic Bill of Rights