David Horowitz debunks David Horowitz: a Media Matters analysis of The Professors
Summary: Right-wing activist David Horowitz has attacked Media Matters for America for noting -- contrary to Horowitz's denial on the April 6 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes -- that his recent book contains numerous instances in which he cited the purported extracurricular activities of the professors he criticized in the book. Horowitz has conceded that there is a "sliver of truth in the Media Matters statement" that documented his inconsistencies, but he downplayed this, claiming that "my book is a series of profiles of 101 professors" that includes "general perspectives, [that] may or may not be expressed outside the classroom." However, a detailed Media Matters study of the book shows that Horowitz's suggestion that his book does not rely heavily on professors' activities and speech outside of the classroom is false.
In recent days, right-wing activist David Horowitz, president of Students for Academic Freedom, has repeatedly attacked Media Matters for America for noting -- contrary to Horowitz's denial on the April 6 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes -- that his recent book The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America (Regnery, January 2006) contains numerous instances in which Horowitz cited the purported extracurricular activities of the professors he criticized in the book. Horowitz conceded in an April 13 FrontPageMag.com blog post that there is a "sliver of truth in the Media Matters statement" that documented his inconsistencies, but he downplayed this, claiming that "my book is a series of profiles of 101 professors" that includes "general perspectives, [that] may or may not be expressed outside the classroom."
However, a more detailed Media Matters study of The Professors shows that even Horowitz's revised suggestion -- that his book does not rely heavily on professors' activities and speech outside of the classroom, but rather merely mentions extracurricular activities as part of a broader profile of each academic's "general perspectives" -- is false. The study found that of the 100 professors profiled (not 101 as the book's title indicates), Horowitz noted the outside-the-classroom speech and activities of 94 professors in seeking to support his assertions that they are America's "most dangerous academics"; in other words, contrary to his claims on the April 6 edition of Hannity & Colmes, Horowitz criticized only six professors exclusively for their in-class activities (including their speech in class, course titles and/or texts used). Furthermore, in most cases (52 out of 100), Horowitz listed only out-of-class activities, apparently basing his entire claim that a professor is "dangerous" on events that occurred outside the classroom, without mention of anything that went on inside the classroom.
Even when Horowitz did bring up classroom activities, his evidence was thin. Many of his accounts of a professor's classroom activities are based on unverified student descriptions gleaned from such sources as RateMyProfessors.com. In other instances, his entire case that a professor is "dangerous" in the classroom consisted of the title of a course or a book assigned by the professor.
As he continues to contest the merits of our criticism, Horowitz has continued to attack Media Matters, which he has labeled a "smear site" and falsely accused of calling his April 6 statement a "lie." Most recently, in a column dated April 19 on FrontPageMag.com, Horowitz attacked Media Matters and Media Matters research fellow Max Blumenthal, although he did not identify Blumenthal's affiliation with Media Matters. Horowitz wrote that Blumenthal's father, author and former Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal, has "no decency" for not exercising "his paternal instincts [that] might have led him to caution his son before embarking so early on a bottom-feeding career," adding that "Max is an accomplished mud-slinger" and noting that Horowitz himself had previously referred to Blumenthal as "scuzzy."
Below is a list of the professors profiled in Horowitz's book. Media Matters analyzed each profile, categorizing how Horowitz described each professor: 1) included only in-class activities/speech or texts/courses; 2) included in-class activities/speech or texts/courses and activities/speech outside of the classroom; 3) included only activities/speech outside of the classroom.
|
Category legend | ||
|
1 |
Inclusion of ONLY in-class activities/speech or texts/courses | |
|
2 |
Inclusion of in-class activities/speech or texts/courses AND activities/speech outside of the classroom | |
|
3 |
Inclusion of ONLY activities/speech outside of the classroom | |
Chart 1
Chart 2
|
Professor |
Category |
Page Numbers | |||
|
1 |
2 |
3 | |||
|
Ali al-Mazrui |
x |
281-283 | |||
|
Alison Jaggar |
x |
227-229 | |||
|
Aminah Beverly McCloud |
x |
263;264 | |||
|
Amiri Baraka |
x |
35-39 | |||
|
Anatole Anton |
x |
11 | |||
|
Angela Davis |
x |
115-119 | |||
|
Armando Navarro |
x |
288-291 | |||
|
bell hooks (Gloria Watkins) |
x |
223-226 | |||
|
Bernardine Dohrn |
x |
125-127 | |||
|
Bettina Aptheker |
x |
13-16 | |||
|
Bill Ayers |
x |
29-32 | |||
|
Caroline Higgins |
x |
215-218 | |||
|
Dana Cloud |
x |
92-95 | |||
|
David Barash |
x |
40-46 | |||
|
David Cole |
x |
96-99 | |||
|
Dean Saitta |
x |
312-314 | |||
|
Derrick Bell |
x |
56-60 | |||
|
Dessima Williams |
x |
352 | |||
|
Elizabeth M. Brumfiel |
x |
77-80 | |||
|
Emma Perez |
x |
300-303 | |||
|
Eric Foner |
x |
177-179 | |||
|
Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick |
x |
323-324 | |||
|
Frederic Jameson |
x |
230-233 | |||
|
Gayle Rubin |
x |
307-311 | |||
|
George Wolfe |
x |
354-356 | |||
|
Gil Anidjar |
x |
9-10 | |||
|
Gordon Fellman |
x |
171-173 | |||
|
Gover Furr |
x |
186-189 | |||
|
Greg Thomas |
x |
334-335 | |||
|
Gregory Dawes |
x |
120-122 | |||
|
H. Bruce Franklin |
x |
183-185 | |||
|
Hamid Algar |
x |
3-5 | |||
|
Hamid Dabashi |
x |
110-114 | |||
|
Harry Targ |
x |
329-332 | |||
|
Hatem Bazian |
x |
47-49 | |||
|
Haunani-Kay Trask |
x |
343-344 | |||
|
Howard Zinn |
x |
358-364 | |||
|
Ishan Bagby |
x |
33-34 | |||
|
James Holstun |
x |
219-222 | |||
|
Jerry Lembcke |
x |
253-255 | |||
|
Joe Feagin |
x |
167-170 | |||
|
Joel Beinin |
x |
52-54 | |||
|
John Bellamy Foster |
x |
180-182 | |||
|
John Esposito |
x |
148-151 | |||
|
Jose Angel Gutierrez |
x |
202-205 | |||
|
Joseph Massad |
x |
273-275 | |||
|
Juan Cole |
x |
100-102 | |||
|
Kathleen Cleaver |
x |
89-91 | |||
|
Larry Estrada |
x |
152-155 | |||
|
Laurie Brand |
x |
74-76 | |||
|
Leighton Armitage |
x |
21-22 | |||
|
Leonard Jeffries |
x |
234-237 | |||
|
Lewis Gordon |
x |
197-201 | |||
|
Lisa Anderson |
x |
6-7 | |||
|
M. Shahid Alam |
x |
1-2 | |||
|
Manning Marable |
x |
266-270 | |||
|
Marc Becker |
x |
50-51 | |||
|
Marc Ellis |
x |
142-145 | |||
|
Mari Matsuda |
x |
278-280 | |||
|
Mark Ensalaco |
x |
146-147 | |||
|
Mark LeVine |
x |
256-259 | |||
|
Marvin Berlowitz |
x |
61-65 | |||
|
Mary Frances Berry |
x |
66-70 | |||
|
Matthew Evangelista |
x |
156-159 | |||
|
Melissa Gilbert |
x |
190-193 | |||
|
Michael Berube |
x |
71-73 | |||
|
Michael Eric Dyson |
x |
132-135 | |||
|
Michael Schwartz |
x |
319-321 | |||
|
Michael Vocino |
x |
346 | |||
|
Michael Warner |
x |
348 | |||
|
Miriam Cooke |
x |
103-107 | |||
|
Nicholas De Genova |
x |
123-124 | |||
|
Noam Chomsky |
x |
84-88 | |||
|
Norman Finkelstein |
x |
174-176 | |||
|
Oneida Meranto |
x |
284-287 | |||
|
Orvill Schell |
x |
319-322 | |||
|
Patrick Coy |
x |
108-109 | |||
|
Paul Ehrlich |
x |
139-141 | |||
|
Peter Kirstein |
x |
245-249 | |||
|
Priya Parmar |
x |
297-298 | |||
|
Regina Austin |
x |
26-28;27 | |||
|
Richard Falk |
x |
160-163 | |||
|
Rick Eckstein | |||||