Aptheker
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" /><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">his report examines David Horowitz’s book, The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous</font></div><div>Academics in America (Regnery, 2006), which brings up 101 academics on charges of</div><div>indoctrinating their students with their political views. Since Mr. Horowitz’s charges</div><div>are aimed at the core of professors’ professional ethics, we believe that they are not to be</div><div>taken lightly. For Mr. Horowitz to accuse a single person of these charges—let alone 101—</div><div>a reasonable person might expect him to do three things: examine the facts objectively,</div><div>support his conclusions with sound evidence, and make recommendations that are in</div><div>students’ best interests. We believe that Mr. Horowitz fails on all of these counts.</div><div>After conducting interviews with the professors in Mr. Horowitz’s book and fact-checking</div><div>Mr. Horowitz’s evidence, the Free Exchange on Campus coalition has drawn the following</div><div>conclusions:</div><div>• Mr. Horowitz’s book condemns professors for actions that are entirely within</div><div>their rights and entirely appropriate in an atmosphere that promotes the free</div><div>exchange of ideas. Mr. Horowitz chiefly condemns professors for expressing</div><div>their personal political views outside of the classroom. He provides scant</div><div>evidence of professors’ in-class behavior and fails to substantiate his charge that</div><div>the professors in his book indoctrinate their students. What in-class evidence</div><div>he does provide largely demonstrates nothing other than that the professors</div><div>in his book emphasize critical, minority, or historically underrepresented</div><div>viewpoints in their teaching.</div><div>• Mr. Horowitz’s research is sloppy in the extreme and, we believe, manipulated</div><div>to fit his arguments. Mr. Horowitz’s book is characterized by inaccuracies,</div><div>distortions, and manipulations of fact—including false statements,</div><div>mischaracterizations of professors’ views, broad claims unsupported by facts,</div><div>and selective omissions of information that does not fit his argument.</div><div>• In our view, Mr. Horowitz’s conclusions are based on faulty premises. Mr.</div><div>Horowitz’s conclusions are based on the premises that America’s colleges and</div><div>universities are failing to ensure students’ academic freedom, and that students</div><div>lack the critical thinking skills they need to engage with controversial ideas and</div><div>decide what they believe for themselves. We believe both premises are false.</div><div>Executive Summary</div><div>ii | Facts Count</div><div>There are other troubling aspects of Mr. Horowitz’s book. For example, in our view, the</div><div>tone and format of The Professors strongly evokes a blacklist. While Mr. Horowitz does</div><div>not call for the professors in his book to be fired, he does list them by their full names and</div><div>places of business, he does condemn them for their political beliefs, he does (as this report</div><div>will show) distort evidence in the service of leveling unsubstantiated allegations, and</div><div>he does exclude any opposing points of view—all as part of a well-publicized and wellfunded</div><div>media campaign. In tactics we found to be eerily reminiscent of a bygone era, Mr.</div><div>Horowitz’s book also speaks approvingly of students who started a “Watch List,” condemns</div><div>professors for their associations with political organizations, and issues an apologia for</div><div>Senator Joseph McCarthy.</div><div>However, in this report, we limit our focus to disproving Mr. Horowitz’s allegations and</div><div>conclusions on the basis of facts that can be verified by objective observers. As we hope</div><div>readers will agree, The Professors provides more than enough fodder for concern on this</div><div>score alone</div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><a href="https://images1.americanprogress.org/il80web20037/campusprogress/facts_count.pdf"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://images1.americanprogress.org/il80web20037/campusprogress/facts_count.pdf</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Professor Bettina Aptheker</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mr. Horowitz claims that Professor Aptheker “deeply regretted” the fall of the Soviet</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">system. (13)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Professor Aptheker responds, “When socialism ended in the Soviet Union and other</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">European countries, I regretted that the movements to create a democratic and humane</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">socialism had failed. I opposed the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, for example, in</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1968 while a member of the National Committee of the U.S. Communist Party.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mr. Horowitz claims that Professor Aptheker was “expelled from the Communist Party in</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1991 after the failed coup against Gorbachev.” (15)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Professor Aptheker responds, “I was a member of the Communist Party from 1962 to</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">October 1981 (not 1991). I left the Party because of profound disagreements with it,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">most especially on the issue of women’s liberation.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mr. Horowitz claims that Professor Aptheker “informed [UCSC] students” that “’our</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">agenda should be to overthrow Bush.’” (15)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Professor Aptheker responds, “I am inaccurately quoted: I called for the overthrow</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">of George W. Bush ‘by all constitutional and democratic means up to and including</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">impeachment.’” Mr, Horowitz fails to note that Professor Aptheker made these</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">comments outside of the classroom.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Facts Count |</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mr. Horowitz claims that Professor Aptheker “does not have a single work of reputable</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">scholarship to her name,” dismissing her highly regarded work Woman’s Legacy: Essays</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">on Race, Sex, and Class in American History as “ostensibly scholarly.” (14)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Aside from a quote from the poet Adrienne Rich,32</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> Mr. Horowitz does not cite any</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">evidence to back up his dismissal of Professor Aptheker’s book Woman’s Legacy as</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“ostensibly scholarly.” (14)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Professor Aptheker responds, “this was a scholarly book. It was, in fact, my dissertation.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The members of my dissertation committee at the University of California (Santa Cruz)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">were Hayden White, a world-renowned historian; Donna Haraway, a world-renowned</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">scholar in the history of science; and Diane Lewis, a professor of medical anthropology</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">with a particular emphasis on African American communities.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The book was widely and favorably reviewed, including in the Journal of American</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">History and the American Historical Review (although this reviewer was critical of some</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">aspects of the book) … It was published by the University of Massachusetts Press, and,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">of course, refereed by scholars in the field, as are all such university press books.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Professor Aptheker adds, “I am also the author of another book called Tapestries of Life:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Women’s Work, Women’s Consciousness and the Meaning of Daily Existence (University</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">of Massachusetts Press, 1989), which is often used as a text in many women’s studies and</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">critical gender studies courses, and remains in print.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mr. Horowitz claims that Professor Aptheker’s “introductory course at U.C. Santa Cruz</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">on feminism, which she has taught since 1980, turns Marx’s ‘historical materialism—the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">idea that society progresses through successive stages from feudalism to capitalism</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">to socialism into a theory of sexuality, and turns sexuality into a species of political</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">consciousness-raising.” (13)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mr. Horowitz cites no evidence to back up this claim. As Professor Aptheker points out,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Mr. Horowitz’s review of my course ‘Introduction to Feminisms’ bears virtually no</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">resemblance to it. The course is an introductory survey (lower division) of feminist studies.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It is interdisciplinary and covers a range of issues including women’s history, immigration</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">and the global economy, violence against women, reproductive rights, Jewish women and</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the legacy of anti-Semitism (not every year but often), women’s body image, women’s</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">health, and so on. There is one lecture devoted to sexuality, which includes lesbians as well</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">as transgendered people, and others not in the normative mainstream.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">32 Mr. Horowitz writes that Rich “hailed the book as ‘feminist to its core.’” (14)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> | Facts Count</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mr. Horowitz claims, “Aptheker’s course syllabus describes lesbianism as the ‘highest</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">stage of feminism’ (an obvious homage to Lenin’s Imperialism: The Highest Stage of</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Capitalism).” (13)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mr. Horowitz cites no evidence to back up this claim. Professsor Aptheker responds, “the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">course syllabus has never described lesbians as ‘the highest stage’ of anything.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mr. Horowitz claims that Professor Aptheker’s introductory course on feminism is “filmed</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">at university expense.” (13)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mr. Horowitz cites no evidence to back up this claim. Professor Aptheker responds, “this</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">course was filmed in its entirety, not with university funds but by private donations raised</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">by alumni who initiated the request that it be filmed.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mr. Horowitz writes that “on the website RateMyProfessors.com, one of Aptheker’s less</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">than happy students complains that she focuses ‘way too much on personal history—</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">relied on pseudo celebrity status to entertain the class.’” (14)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Professor Aptheker responds, “Student reviews of the course have been very positive both</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">online and in the official evaluations the university conducts. These too are available for</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">public view. Some students are critical; most find the class very helpful. I received the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Distinguished Teaching Award from the UCSC Alumni Association in 2001.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Professor Aptheker adds, “and yes, I do share personal stories, and stories more generally</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">as a method of teaching. I have also used poetry, music, and film.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mr. Horowitz claims that Professor Aptheker “authored an article in The Wave pledging</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">support for Palestinian terrorists, whom she euphemistically described as ‘antioccupation</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">activists.’” (16)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Professor Aptheker responds, “I have never, ever supported or called for the support</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">of terrorists, Palestinian or otherwise. [emphasis added] The reference quoted was</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">not to Palestinians but to Israelis active in the effort to end the occupation of Palestinian</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">territories.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Professor Aptheker adds, “I am a member of Temple Beth El in my community, and I am</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">a member of the Jewish Studies faculty at the University of California (Santa Cruz)</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">---</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Part Two: ”Dangerous” Professors Respond
Below are responses from 23 of the professors profiled in David Horowitz’s book,
The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America. We gathered these
responses simply by emailing the professors a few weeks ago and giving them the
opportunity to address the charges Mr. Horowitz makes against them. We received many
responses, and they continue to arrive. The material below reflects submissions from
professors who responded quickly and whose claims we were able to independently
verify. We will continue to post additional responses on our website,
www.freeexchangeoncampus.org.
In our view, Mr. Horowitz’s research is sloppy in the extreme and manipulated to fit his
arguments. His book is characterized by inaccuracies, distortions, and manipulations
of fact—including false statements, mischaracterizations of professors’ views, broad
claims unsupported by facts and selective omissions of information that does not fit his
argument. As we believe these pages demonstrate, in the debate over academic freedom,
the facts do not favor Mr. Horowitz.
Professor Anatole Anton
Mr. Horowitz does not provide a single footnote in his chapter on Professor Anatole
Anton, and nothing in this chapter addresses Professor Anton’s research or teaching.
The majority of Mr. Horowitz’s chapter on Professor Anton focuses not on Professor
Anton himself but on an organization with which he is affiliated, the Radical Philosophy
Association (RPA). Because this chapter is more about the RPA than it is about Professor
Anton, the responses below are from Professor Richard Schmitt, who teaches philosophy at
Brown University, is a member of the RPA and who, according to Professor Anton, “is very
knowledgeable about the history and official stands of the organization. More so than I am.”
Mr. Horowitz claims that the RPA “opposes U.S. economic and military aid to Israel, on
grounds that such aid is ‘perceived’ as supporting ‘the enem[y] of Muslim nations.’” (11)
Mr. Horowitz cites no evidence to back up this claim. Professor Schmitt responds, the
“RPA has no position on aid to Israel that I know of. I am quite certain that we have no
position on supporting ‘Muslim nations.’”
Mr. Horowitz claims, “the Radical Philosophy Association supports Cuba’s Communist
dictatorship.” (11)
| Facts Count
Mr. Horowitz cites no evidence to back up this claim. Professor Schmitt responds,
“Some people in RPA support Cuba; others do not.”
Mr. Horowitz claims that RPA members ‘believe that fundamental change requires
broad social upheavals but also opposition to intellectual support for exploitative and
dehumanizing social structures, [including] capitalism, racism, sexism, homophobia,
disability discrimination, environmental ruin, and all other forms of domination.’ (11)
Mr. Horowitz only quotes half of the RPA’s mission statement. The full mission
statement reads: “Our efforts are guided by the vision of a society founded on
cooperation instead of competition, in which all areas of society are, as far as
possible, governed by democratic decision-making. We believe that fundamental
change requires broad social upheavals but also opposition to intellectual support for
exploitative and dehumanizing social structures.” [emphasis added] The second half of
Mr. Horowitz’s quote is spliced in from another section of the RPA website, through the
use of the word “[including].”
Professor Bettina Aptheker
Mr. Horowitz claims that Professor Aptheker “deeply regretted” the fall of the Soviet
system. (13)
Professor Aptheker responds, “When socialism ended in the Soviet Union and other
European countries, I regretted that the movements to create a democratic and humane
socialism had failed. I opposed the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, for example, in
1968 while a member of the National Committee of the U.S. Communist Party.”
Mr. Horowitz claims that Professor Aptheker was “expelled from the Communist Party in
1991 after the failed coup against Gorbachev.” (15)
Professor Aptheker responds, “I was a member of the Communist Party from 1962 to
October 1981 (not 1991). I left the Party because of profound disagreements with it,
most especially on the issue of women’s liberation.”
Mr. Horowitz claims that Professor Aptheker “informed [UCSC] students” that “’our
agenda should be to overthrow Bush.’” (15)
Professor Aptheker responds, “I am inaccurately quoted: I called for the overthrow
of George W. Bush ‘by all constitutional and democratic means up to and including
impeachment.’” Mr, Horowitz fails to note that Professor Aptheker made these
comments outside of the classroom.
Facts Count |
Mr. Horowitz claims that Professor Aptheker “does not have a single work of reputable
scholarship to her name,” dismissing her highly regarded work Woman’s Legacy: Essays
on Race, Sex, and Class in American History as “ostensibly scholarly.” (14)
Aside from a quote from the poet Adrienne Rich,32
Mr. Horowitz does not cite any
evidence to back up his dismissal of Professor Aptheker’s book Woman’s Legacy as
“ostensibly scholarly.” (14)
Professor Aptheker responds, “this was a scholarly book. It was, in fact, my dissertation.
The members of my dissertation committee at the University of California (Santa Cruz)
were Hayden White, a world-renowned historian; Donna Haraway, a world-renowned
scholar in the history of science; and Diane Lewis, a professor of medical anthropology
with a particular emphasis on African American communities.
“The book was widely and favorably reviewed, including in the Journal of American
History and the American Historical Review (although this reviewer was critical of some
aspects of the book) … It was published by the University of Massachusetts Press, and,
of course, refereed by scholars in the field, as are all such university press books.”
Professor Aptheker adds, “I am also the author of another book called Tapestries of Life:
Women’s Work, Women’s Consciousness and the Meaning of Daily Existence (University
of Massachusetts Press, 1989), which is often used as a text in many women’s studies and
critical gender studies courses, and remains in print.”
Mr. Horowitz claims that Professor Aptheker’s “introductory course at U.C. Santa Cruz
on feminism, which she has taught since 1980, turns Marx’s ‘historical materialism—the
idea that society progresses through successive stages from feudalism to capitalism
to socialism into a theory of sexuality, and turns sexuality into a species of political
consciousness-raising.” (13)
Mr. Horowitz cites no evidence to back up this claim. As Professor Aptheker points out,
“Mr. Horowitz’s review of my course ‘Introduction to Feminisms’ bears virtually no
resemblance to it. The course is an introductory survey (lower division) of feminist studies.
It is interdisciplinary and covers a range of issues including women’s history, immigration
and the global economy, violence against women, reproductive rights, Jewish women and
the legacy of anti-Semitism (not every year but often), women’s body image, women’s
health, and so on. There is one lecture devoted to sexuality, which includes lesbians as well
as transgendered people, and others not in the normative mainstream.”
32 Mr. Horowitz writes that Rich “hailed the book as ‘feminist to its core.’” (14)
| Facts Count
Mr. Horowitz claims, “Aptheker’s course syllabus describes lesbianism as the ‘highest
stage of feminism’ (an obvious homage to Lenin’s Imperialism: The Highest Stage of
Capitalism).” (13)
Mr. Horowitz cites no evidence to back up this claim. Professsor Aptheker responds, “the
course syllabus has never described lesbians as ‘the highest stage’ of anything.”
Mr. Horowitz claims that Professor Aptheker’s introductory course on feminism is “filmed
at university expense.” (13)
Mr. Horowitz cites no evidence to back up this claim. Professor Aptheker responds, “this
course was filmed in its entirety, not with university funds but by private donations raised
by alumni who initiated the request that it be filmed.”
Mr. Horowitz writes that “on the website RateMyProfessors.com, one of Aptheker’s less
than happy students complains that she focuses ‘way too much on personal history—
relied on pseudo celebrity status to entertain the class.’” (14)
Professor Aptheker responds, “Student reviews of the course have been very positive both
online and in the official evaluations the university conducts. These too are available for
public view. Some students are critical; most find the class very helpful. I received the
Distinguished Teaching Award from the UCSC Alumni Association in 2001.”
Professor Aptheker adds, “and yes, I do share personal stories, and stories more generally
as a method of teaching. I have also used poetry, music, and film.”
Mr. Horowitz claims that Professor Aptheker “authored an article in The Wave pledging
support for Palestinian terrorists, whom she euphemistically described as ‘antioccupation
activists.’” (16)
Professor Aptheker responds, “I have never, ever supported or called for the support
of terrorists, Palestinian or otherwise. [emphasis added] The reference quoted was
not to Palestinians but to Israelis active in the effort to end the occupation of Palestinian
territories.
Professor Aptheker adds, “I am a member of Temple Beth El in my community, and I am
a member of the Jewish Studies faculty at the University of California (Santa Cruz).”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div></div>