... Since right-wing critics like Horowitz focus so much on left-wing English departments, it is appropriate that Michael Bérubé, who teaches literature at Penn State, has become Horowitz's most engaged critic. In "What's Liberal About the Liberal Arts?" Bérubé comes off as spunky, likable and anything but a left-wing extremist — you won't find him defending the truth-telling courage of Ward Churchill, the University of Colorado professor who referred to 9/11 victims as "little Eichmanns" — and he convinces me that Horowitz is as unpleasant as he is ungracious. But he does not persuade me that Horowitz is wrong. I've taught in at least two universities known for their leftism, and I know full well that those who teach at them strenuously opppose hiring conservatives and treat students who venerate the military, for example, as misguided. Were Horowitz not in fact intent on replacing left-wing thought police with their right-wing equivalent, I would applaud his efforts.
Left-wing domination of academia is so obvious a fact that Bérubé never tries to deny it. He knows that his own field "is so pervasively liberal-left that smart young conservatives will shun it altogether." There is "more than a grain of truth" in the charge that Middle Eastern studies departments are generally biased against Israel. ...
Carl