The resulting intellectual environment has been described by literary critic Harold Bloom as "Stalinism without Stalin." ("All of the traits of the Stalinists in the 1930s and 1940s are being repeated in the universities in the 1990s," Bloom observed.) One faculty advisor to the College Republicans at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, Calif., put it another way in a letter to the Wall Street Journal: "Republican faculty members operate on a 'don't ask, don't tell' basis to the best of our ability. At official faculty meetings, Democratic fund-raising requests, political buttons, bumper stickers and petitions are very publicly circulated, putting non-tenured faculty in a very difficult position."

After the letter-writer says she was "outed" as a non-liberal, a department colleague told her, "We would never have hired you if we'd known you were a Republican."

This situation is now being challenged in a suit brought against the University of California at Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism by Michael Savage, a top-rated -- and outspokenly conservative -- radio talk show host in the Bay Area. Savage also has a Ph.D., two master's degrees and 18 published works to his credit. Last year, Savage applied for the dean's job at the journalism school, which was advertised in the New York Times. Despite his qualifications, Savage says he was quickly informed by the chairman of the search committee, sociology professor Troy Duster, that he would not even be interviewed for the job. Duster happens to be an old acquaintance of mine, a Berkeley radical who, clearly, has not had significant second thoughts.

The candidate actually selected for the deanship was Orville Schell, another old radical friend. Schell does not have a Ph.D., and although he was for many years a staff writer for the New Yorker and has written several critically praised books on China, his chief occupation before he acquired the deanship appeared to be operating a cattle ranch he then co-owned in Bolinas, just north of San Francisco.

Schell was what I used to call a Gucci Marxist; his chief credential for the Berkeley deanship seems to be that he has similar politics as Duster and the faculty powers who control journalism school appointments. Savage believes that the placement of the advertisement in the New York Times was little more than a sham to cover a decision already made to hire a political comrade for the position.

Savage decided to fight. He turned to the Individual Rights Foundation (a public interest law group I created) for help. The legal director of the IRF, Patrick Manshardt, filed suit against the University of California Regents and also against Duster -- both as an individual and in his capacity as chairman of the journalism school's search committee.

The case rests on two contentions. The first is that the manner of Schell's appointment constitutes political patronage, which is illegal under the labor laws of the state of California. The second is that the political litmus test for the deanship is a violation of Savage's First Amendment rights, in this case that one may not be excluded from public employment because of political ideas.

The Savage case will perform a public service if it succeeds in highlighting the current political subversion of America's institutions of higher learning. In today's polluted academic atmosphere, "Afrocentric" racists can expound theories of blood destiny and "queer theorists" can defend reckless sexual practices in the face of a mortal epidemic; and they can do so with the imprimatur and all the resources at the university's disposal. And while such charlatans and extremists control entire departments and liberal arts faculties, conservative scholars are treated as pariahs.

The politicization of the university and the debasement of the academic calling is a national disgrace. Savage's suit is a small but meaningful step toward the restoration of democracy and institutional integrity to the nation's university culture.
SALON | June 15, 1998

Discuss David Horowitz's column in the Politics area of Table Talk.

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R E L A T E D_.S A L O N_.S T O R I E S

The loafing class Shiftless, lazy good-for-nothings? Try the richly paid leftist professors securely ensconced in their irrelevant ivory towers.
By David Horowitz
Feb. 2, 1998

Why liberals can't see straight about race Caught in a tortured dance of guilt and voyeurism, the right-thinking gatekeepers in the media and academia have perfected ways to avoid seeing the collapse of their racialist politics.
By Jim Sleeper
Aug. 18, 1997

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