Controversial publicist, author and conservative political commentator David Horowitz spoke about last year's Duke Student Movement protests and his national anti-reparations advertising campaign to a relatively calm and attentive crowd of more than 500 in Page Auditorium Tuesday night.
"I am the scary guy," Horowitz said in his opening. "Some really mean things have been said about me on this campus."
The pundit, whose ad caused major protests at Duke when printed last March, spoke on what he called a hate campaign against him. He told the audience that the protests, as well as the general indignation the ad received on campuses nationwide, reflected a larger movement by leftists to suppress conservative opinions at America's academic institutions.
"I bet that every one of you is afraid to speak your mind on some issues--nobody wants to be called a racist," Horowitz said. "There is a suppression of conservative thought on this campus infinitely more ruthless than McCarthy's suppression of the left in the '50s."
Horowitz said Duke's lack of conservative professors was part of this growing trend and called upon the administration to institute more ideological diversity in their faculty by increasing the number of conservative hires.
"I don't care whether you pay $35,000 for an education," Horowitz said. "You cannot be educated by exclusively left-wing professors and develop a complex view of the world." When asked by Assistant Professor of Political Science Henk Goemans for evidence that the faculty was dominated by leftists, Horowitz said Duke Conservative Union members had told him that; and he asked that a survey of faculty in the social sciences be conducted at Duke.
Horowitz also criticized James B. Duke Professor Emeritus of History John Hope Franklin, speaking point by point on a letter to the editor printed in The Chronicle that the scholar wrote last spring. "I don't think that John Hope Franklin is worthy of the honors that have been given him," he said, adding that he would return to Duke next week to debate Franklin or any other faculty member. "He has either forgotten what he knows, or he is ignorant."
Horowitz also accused the Black Student Alliance and DSM of exploiting Duke's administration by accusing them of racism and demanding financial donations for cultural groups.
"The result has been that this University has been shaken down for $100,000," he said. "I should have a plaque on the wall of the black culture center."
During a lengthy question-and-answer session, one student read aloud an argument disputing Horowitz's sixth claim in his anti-slavery reparations advertisement with historical facts and statistics. Horowitz praised the student, adding that this was the type of argument he was hoping for after his advertisements were published.
Several students questioned the sincerity of Horowitz's calls for dialogue, citing the hypocrisy of what they considered to be his combative rhetoric, as well as his sweeping generalizations of leftists and student activists. Horowitz responded by saying that his dismissive attitude was a response to what he considered to be uninformed attacks by campus groups like DSM.
Leon Dunkley, director of the Mary Lou Williams Center for Black Culture, moderated an informal debriefing session in the center after the speech. "I think I found the whole dialogue thing interesting," Dunkley said. "This one-sided approach to the argument was hard to deal with as far as making a dialogue."
Vice President for Institutional Equity Sally Dickson said she was particularly disturbed by Horowitz's personal commentary on Franklin and his desire to agitate students on race issues by appealing to their emotions.
"I think Horowitz set our students up. I think he set The Chronicle up," Dickson said. "I think he obviously had an agenda. As he said tonight, the ad was a red herring."
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