Brainwashed

by Ben Shapiro

  Advance Praise for

  BRAINWASHED

  “Ben Shapiro’s courage and insight should provide inspiration not only for other young conservatives on campus, but also for their parents. His book is a welcome sign that all is not lost for this new generation.”

  —MICHAEL MEDVED,

  nationally syndicated radio host and author of Hollywood vs. America

  “Don’t tell me a book this brilliant was written by a college kid barely out of his teens. It’s got to have been written by a gutsy old sage who somehow got himself embedded into UCLA and whose piercing observations have the power to save the oncoming generation from tyrants with tenure.”

  —BARRY FARBER,

  nationally syndicated radio host

  “With wit and verve, Ben Shapiro—America’s youngest national columnist— provides a firsthand account of how liberal pieties masquerade as the only truth in today’s corrupted universities. With luck, his critique will help others begin to the take those steps needed to fix the campus and return it to its esteemed place in our national life.”

  —DANIEL PIPES,

  founder of Campus Watch and columnist for the New York Sun

  “Been there. Done that (Tulane, A&S, ’91). Ben gets it exactly right about the modern collegiate brainwash. Thankfully, beer and Mardi Gras saved me from full indoctrination. But Shapiro’s unassailable book, most assuredly, is the healthier blueprint to avoiding Marx and Engel’s witting accomplices.”

  —ANDREW BREITBART,

  co-author of Hollywood, Interrupted: Insanity Chic in Babylon— The Case Against Celebrity

  “A brilliant new voice for a new generation of activists: Don’t miss Ben Shapiro’s new book!”

  —HUGH HEWITT,

  nationally syndicated radio host and author of In, But Not Of

  “This book reveals how deeply entrenched a noxious culture of hatred for America and Western values has become among those who teach our nation’s young men and women. Shapiro delivers a sobering wake-up call for all Americans, detailing the pressing need to—as the Left might put it—take back our colleges and universities.”

  —ROBERT SPENCER,

  director of Jihad Watch and author of Onward Muslim Soldiers and Islam Unveiled

  “In Brainwashed, Ben Shapiro rips the liberal university system to shreds.

  With an arch wit and insider’s perspective, Shapiro exposes how liberal group-think has spread bacteria-like through our education system and is threatening to squash genuine debate in our schools.”

  —ARMSTRONG WILLIAMS

  nationally syndicated columnist

  “Shapiro has a razor-sharp pen. His pointed criticism is directed at the overwhelming percentage of college professors who believe Islam is good and Christianity is bad, who don’t accept that capitalism beat socialism because capitalism is ending centuries of destitution, and who worship skin-color diversity but who blithely create strict campus rules against diversity of speech.”

  —JILL STEWART

  “Capitol Punishment” syndicated columnist, radio and television political commentator

  BRAINWASHED

  HOW UNIVERSITIES

  INDOCTRINATE

  AMERICA’S YOUTH

  BEN SHAPIRO

  Copyright © 2004 by Ben Shapiro

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by WND Books.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Shapiro, Ben.

  Brainwashed : how universities indoctrinate America’s youth / Ben Shapiro.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 0-7852-6148-6

  1. Education, Higher—Political aspects—United States. 2. Education, Higher—Social aspects—United States. 3. College teachers—United States—Attitudes. 4. College students—United States—Attitudes. I. Title: How universities indoctrinate America's youth. II. Title.

  LC89.S484 2004

  378.73—dc22

  2004001945

  Printed in the United States of America

  04 05 06 07 08 BVG 5 4 3 2 1

  To my parents,

  who taught me the difference between right and wrong and gave me the strength to confront falsehood.

  CONTENTS

  Publisher’s Note

  Foreword

  Introduction

  1. No Moral Absolutes

  2. Partisan Politics

  3. Workers of the World, Unite!

  4. “Not Just for the Rich and White!”

  5. Sex in the Classroom

  6. Saving the Earth

  7. The War on God

  8. Burning the Flag

  9. Teaching for Saddam

  10. “Zionist Pigs”

  11. The Bruin, the Bad, and the Ugly

  12. College Cliques

  13. Solutions

  Notes

  Acknowledgments

  Index

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  These are strange times on America’s university campuses. While professors use their position to indoctrinate their students, the classical liberal view of higher learning has given way to the modern liberal view of lower living.

  Reporting on this decline has posed a bit of a problem for WND Books because to paint the full picture has required author Ben Shapiro to quote some fairly crude material and deal with offensive subject matter. Publishing material of this sort is not something we as a publisher do; it’s against our corporate policy. But in this instance we have done so for one simple and vital reason: To know what students are really getting themselves into requires they know what’s really going on.

  We do not publish this material to appeal to prurient interests but to more fully advise and inform students, parents, and those concerned about the university system and what they can expect from it.

  DAVID DUNHAM

  Publisher, WND Books

  FOREWORD

  BY DAVID LIMBAUGH

  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard people—including myself— muse how interesting it would be if they could relive their lives as teenagers or college students with the knowledge, savvy, and experience they have acquired through their additional years. Of course it’s idle fantasy, but as I’ve come to know Ben Shapiro over the past few years, I’ve been reminded of that very thought.

  I’ve met my share of precocious young adults who were talented in their own way but never one with the intellectual maturity and insight of Ben. To borrow the cliché, he has wisdom well beyond his years. Which is what makes his book, examining the university culture, unique.

  It seems that most of these types of books are written either by professors or those outside the system. By contrast, this book is an insider’s look at academic indoctrination from one currently being victimized by it. But Ben’s perspective is not limited to that of a university student with blinders to everything but his studies. He is also an astute political analyst and cultural critic, already writing a nationally syndicated column. So with Brainwashed we get a sophisticated and firsthand critique of the university as an institution of ideological propaganda for the leftwing, secular worldview. And the book delivers—confirming our worst fears about modern academia.

  It covers, topic by topic, all the major issues on college campuses and all the major aspects of college life, convincingly documenting the overt liberal bias among professors and shattering the conventional wisdom that their bias is irrelevant to their teaching. The bias has deep historical roots in this country and is growing in
intensity. It covers the gamut, from accusing Republicans of stealing the presidential election in 2000, passing tax cuts for the rich, robbing seniors of their Social Security benefits, and poisoning our air and water, to praising the failed system of Marxism and denouncing capitalism. The outrage doesn’t end there. Shapiro also documents the shocking professorial promotion of sexual deviancy and even their inexcusable justifications of terrorism.

  Shapiro goes beyond merely exposing the bias. Using hard data and reasoned argument, he also debunks the myths and distortions propagated by a professoriate incapable of objective analysis because of its ideological enslavement. An example is its blind advocacy of minimum wage laws to help the poor even though most economists oppose them because they lead to job cutbacks.

  As Shapiro demonstrates, most professors—and not just those in the political and social science departments—don’t even aspire to present a balanced perspective. In many cases, part of their mission is to influence the students’ outlook. And they are succeeding. He cites surveys and exit-polling data showing that while slightly more college freshmen identify themselves as liberal than conservative, that gap widens substantially as they become upper-classmen.

  The brainwashing of students transcends the classrooms, to the student media (using tuition funds), and student groups—which themselves often become instruments of leftwing professorial indoctrination. While the Left glorifies diversity of race and ethnicity, it actively opposes diversity of thought, considering only leftist ideas acceptable for dissemination. The very ideal of education to create an atmosphere of open inquiry is tacitly mocked in favor of the monolithic liberal agenda.

  But academic integrity is not the only victim of doctrinaire leftwing academic bias. Truth itself is a casualty as the result of a disturbing trend in academia to fully embrace postmodern moral relativism. How can ideas flowing from traditional values receive a proper airing when the prevailing dogma emphatically rejects moral absolutes? How can students be expected to further their grasp on reality when the university atmosphere teaches that truth is a social construct largely defined by power? Yet, as Shapiro shows, "the assault on absolute morality is the basis for every brainwashing scheme of the Left."

  We should all shudder when we realize that the university establishment is training our youth to believe "there is no such thing as a neutral or objective claim" and that there is no such thing as evil, except, perhaps, for political conservatives and "big corporations." When a prominent Princeton University professor is not ridiculed and shunned but celebrated for arguing that it is moral to murder disabled newborn human beings, we ought to understand that something is seriously wrong with our campus culture. And these warped perspectives can’t help but have a stunningly damaging impact on the future of this nation, as today’s students are tomorrow’s leaders.

  Despite the bleak picture Shapiro paints, he does not close on a pessimistic note. In his three-step action plan, he offers a number of practical solutions as part of a multi-pronged strategy to deal with this multifaceted problem. Brainwashed is a sober and engaging treatment of a serious problem that should concern every parent, student, and lover of liberty in America today.

  INTRODUCTION

  INDOCTRINATING THE YOUTH

  “It is imperative that our classrooms be free of indoctrination.

  Indoctrination is not education.”

  —ROBERT M. BEHRDAHL

  Chancellor, University of California, Berkeley1

  If only our educators believed this. For years, the university system has brainwashed its students to believe fervently in the tenets of liberalism. The universities accept into their waiting clutches young, open-minded students ready to learn. They turn out mainstream liberals, spouting the Democratic party line—and that’s just the “moderate” students. Students often graduate believing in the mythic power of Marxism and hating the “racist American system.”

  From race to the environment, from religion to sex, from the War on Terror to the Arab-Israeli conflict, universities push a never-ending line of liberal claptrap. The higher education system indoctrinates America’s youth.

  The vast majority of the professoriate is leftist. This is an uncontested fact. A poll conducted of Ivy League professors and administrators at liberal arts and social science faculties showed that 84 percent voted for Al Gore in 2000, as opposed to 9 percent for George W. Bush. Fifty-seven percent identified themselves as Democrats while only 3 percent identified themselves as Republicans.2

  Leftists argue that professorial bias is irrelevant to their teaching. They say that even if a professor is liberal, he or she will undoubtedly offer a balanced view. This is blatantly false. As they do in the mainstream media, liberals dominate the “higher education” scene. And just as in the media, the liberal tilt is extremely real and extremely influential.

  Professors generally feel no need to keep their personal biases out of the classroom. American Association of University Professors General Secretary Mary Burgan explains that to separate bias from teaching would be “impossible . . . It is the job of the faculty to decide which critical, relevant and commanding [viewpoints] to concentrate on in the classroom.” University of California at San Diego Professor Linda Brodkey argues that to teach both sides of the story is unnecessary—rather, students must only be assured that “there is always free debate.” UCSD provost David Jordan is more blunt: “Why should I teach a point of view I don’t agree with?”3

  College students are attacked with bias from the moment they step on campus until the time they leave it. The effect is devastating.

  The typical college student has just left the cocoon of the lower educational system. A Fall 2001 survey of entering college freshmen revealed that “29.9 percent of students entering four-year colleges and universities characterize their political views as ‘liberal’ or ‘far left’“ while “20.7 percent . . . consider themselves ‘conservative’ or ‘far right.’”4 This leaves a ten-percentage-point differential between right and left.

  By the time students become upper-classmen, a ten-point political gap often becomes a fifty-point canyon. In an informal exit poll conducted by the UCLA Daily Bruin during the 2000 presidential election, Gore garnered 71 percent of the UCLA student vote, with Bush receiving a mere 20 percent. Ralph Nader came in a close third, at 9 percent.5

  Just wait until these students graduate. By that time, they will be walking, talking leftists babbling nonsensically about “tax cuts for the rich” and “exploitation of African-Americans, Latinos, Muslims, women, children, and lab animals.”

  BELLY OF THE BEAST

  I know all of this not because of polling data (which confirms my stated observations) or talk radio (which is often far more reliable and accurate than network news), but from personal experience: I have been a student at the University of California at Los Angeles since age sixteen. I am a political science major and have taken dozens of courses throughout my UCLA career. I have seen firsthand the leftist brainwashing occurring on campus on a daily basis.

  The mechanisms of indoctrination are not limited to professors lecturing to a captive audience. Student media play a large role in shaping the views of the student body at UCLA and other campuses around the country. Student groups use tuition money to spew propaganda: propaganda that invariably touts a leftist view of the world. I wrote an opinion column for the UCLA Daily Bruin for nearly two years; they fired me for revealing the newspaper’s systematic bias in favor of the Islamic community.

  The student media and student groups are often used by professors for brainwashing students. For example, at UCLA, professors write to the Daily Bruin, seek interviews with other student media, or speak at events sponsored and organized by student groups. Professors pose as experts on a wide variety of topics unrelated to their area of expertise.

  Indoctrination is not limited to UCLA. The same bias exists in universities around the country. Comparing notes with friends around the country or merely following the news shows a
concerted pattern of leftism throughout the “higher education” system.

  I do not suggest that all professors are to the left of Stalin. Some of the most complimentary letters I have received regarding either my Daily Bruin column or my syndicated column are from professors. On the other hand, it would be intellectually dishonest to claim, as liberals often do, that because exceptions exist to a rule, the rule is no longer relevant. The vast majority of professors identifies with leftist politics and rarely misses an opportunity to plant those rancid seeds in the minds of their students.

  BATTLING THE BEAST

  The burgeoning problem of brainwashing by the universities must be combated. The diversity touted by the university system reaches only as far as skin color or country of origin. The spectrum of ideas extends only from the left to the far left. Assistant Professor Heather K. Gerken of Harvard puts it thus: “When the faculty is as liberal as it is, we end up breaking down into liberals and progressives.”6 Students aren’t likely to get a well-rounded view of the world.

  This problem cannot be underestimated. American men and women go to universities to be educated and exit knowing only one side of the story. Those who protest against the totalitarian rule of leftist thought are patronized or frightened into submission.

  As a columnist for the Daily Bruin, I once received a laudatory e-mail from a UCLA administrator. I replied to the e-mail and asked the author if I could forward his letter to my editor for possible publication in the Bruin. The author replied, “As a father of three and a career staff member, I’m afraid I could not handle the potential damage my express thoughts would do to my career as an administrator here. . . . Sadly, for those of us who earn our living here as staff, it’s professional suicide to engage in free expression.”7

  This book will delve into the world of the university. It will rip the cover off of a system that for too long has claimed diplomatic immunity while simultaneously feeding students a steady diet of leftism. It will reveal, in full detail, one of the greatest problems facing America: the brainwashing of its youth.