CSUMB Conservatives Assert Themselves with Horowitz

In a move long supported by the campus Republican community, CSU Monterey Bay brought in its first conservative speaker in its eleven year history on Thursday May 4. David Horowitz, the founder of Students for Academic Freedom and the advocate for Students' Bill of Rights made an appearance to counter the perceived liberal bias of recent speakers Ward Churchill and Joseph Wilson. He was ostensibly on a book tour for his latest opus identifying the 101 most dangerous academics in America, two of which are at UCSC, which he later asserted had the worst campus administration in the nation. The crowd, largely made up of older community members and students at UC Santa Cruz, was decidedly sparse compared to the audiences for the liberal firebrands Churchill and Wilson. The CSUMB turnout was nearly nonexistent, a lack of support that surely led to what Horowitz described as an intensely difficult process to come up with his “paltry” speaking fee. The response to Horowitz’ most salient points were mostly conducted in abject silence, as the crowd very rarely broke into applause despite the demagogic and intense rants Horowitz unleashed.

Horowitz touched on many of the topics one would expect, mincing no words in stating that the faculty of CSUMB was made up of Communist and totalitarian radicals who were indoctrinating the student population. The CSUMB College Republicans have been among the fastest growing and most popular student organizations in recent history because of the resistance to the multicultural creed of CSUMB and the explicit leftist speech that obviously is present on campus.

Horowitz repeatedly cited Churchill as an example of the extremism of the left in general and how his appearance at CSUMB was emblematic of the culture of extreme ideology at the university. Calling him an “imposter Indian,” Horowitz used him as a case study for the ways in which ideologically leftist professors disseminate the view that America is a country to be disdained and reprimanded. A severe blunder occurred when Horowitz stated that he was opposed to any opposition to a guest speaker on a college campus; it was the CSUMB Republicans a year ago who instigated an extremely disruptive protest at the Churchill lecture apparently violating one of Horowitz’ principles. Considering that Churchill’s books have appeared in classes at CSUMB with the express purpose of identifying America as an imperial evil, these points seemed to draw support from the crowd. One female CSUMB student, describing herself as a “liberal feminist” stated her support of Horowitz and her view that the professors at CSUMB have gone far beyond traditional liberalism into the realm of dangerous indoctrination.

Horowitz made two extensive discussions on national policy issues; those being Iraq and illegal immigration with respect to Mexico. On the Iraq issue, Horowitz asserted the traditional conservative view that the presence of elections and the fact that women are voting is reason enough for the American people to support the war. On immigration, Horowitz declared that the influx of illegal immigrants had to do with the contrasting quality of cultures between the two countries and that the obviously superior United States was having its primacy washed over by leftists seeking to define the problem as one of compassion for the poor. Horowitz hammered this idea home with his position that the inner city government liberals in the United States had committed such a failure with respect to alleviating poverty that “leftists have done more damage to the poor” than conservatives.

Needless to say, there was enough conservative rhetoric to make up for at least a few days of the eleven years that conservative students have had no voice on campus.