Book Description
Universities once believed themselves to be
sacred enclaves, where students and professors could debate
the issues of the day and arrive at a better understanding of
the human condition. Today, sadly, this ideal of the
university is being quietly betrayed from within.
Universities still set themselves apart from American
society, but now they do so by enforcing their own
politically correct worldview through censorship, double
standards, and a judicial system without due process. Faculty
and students who threaten the prevailing norms may be forced
to undergo "thought reform." In a surreptitious
aboutface, universities have become the enemy of a free
society, and the time has come to hold these institutions to
account.
The Shadow University is a stinging indictment of
the covert system of justice on college campuses, exposing
the widespread reliance on kangaroo courts and arbitrary
punishment to coerce students and faculty into conformity.
Alan Charles Kors and Harvey A. Silverglate, staunch civil
libertarians and active defenders of free inquiry on campus,
lay bare the totalitarian mindset that undergirds speech
codes, conduct codes, and "campus life"
bureaucracies, through which a cadre of deans and counselors
indoctrinate students and faculty in an ideology that favors
group rights over individual rights, sacrificing free speech
and academic freedom to spare the sensitivities of currently
favored groups.
From Maine to California, at public and private
universities alike, liberty and fairness are the first
casualties as teachers and students find themselves in the
dock, presumed guilty until proven innocent and often
forbidden to cross-examine their accusers. Kors and
Silverglate introduce us to many of those who have firsthand
experience of the shadow university, including: