How Universities Indoctrinate America's Youth

I have nearly finished Shapiro's book and the most striking thing about it is the ease with which he shows American university professors to be fools, by using their own words. I teach at a public university in Canada, where all universities are public universities, and most university faculty have socialist tendancies, so I have some sense of the difficulties that conservative thinkers face in the academic community. While Shapiro may have put forward some of the most blantant examples of professor bias, his basic thesis is valid. There is not much diversity of thought at universities.
If there is a major flaw in Shapiro's argument it is that he should draw a distinction between professors who make controversial statements about issues that fall within their area of competence and those who do not. For example, a professor who holds a Ph.D. in economics may have a legitimate basis to question the "fairness" or "effectiveness" of President Bush's capital gains tax cut program, even though he/she is still bringing bias into the class.
On the other hand, the opinions of a professor with a Ph.d. in english are no more relevent on these questions than the opinions of a plumber, an astronaut or Barry Bonds. I suspect that most of the professors cited by Shaprio are really speaking well outside their area of competence. Thus, they are not only biased, but ignorant.

I think there is an epidemic of "reviews" by reviewers who have not read the book they are reviewing. Shapiro does recite a lot of examples that are impossible to explain by the reviewers who still have no idea what this book contains.
I have been to several colleges like the several others here. While my initial crticism of Shapiro is his limited sampling of colleges, at least they are representative of his own experiences.
There are plenty who le disagree with the author and I commend the "single star" reviewers who took the time to debate the book. It is certainly more then you will every see in one of todays universities. Debate is prohibited or at least tightly controlled. I have seen debate points scripted by the professor and vetted by the administration. I have also seen people "assigned: debating points based on "what we expect you to think".
I do have to laugh and wonder how a person that contends that -
"they question every belief, every preconceived notion. To openly confront you with a situation you'd never before been face-to-face ..."
- can explain campus "speech codes".
How does one reconcile -
" argue with your conservative beliefs and try to sway you to theirs, it's to help you either better defend and know your position ..."
- with the censorship of The Daily Barometer at the University of Oregon and the firing of the columnist David Willimans who dared to "question preconcieved notions."
The most interesting thing I have noticed here is the the negative reviewers have not in a single instance attempted to refute or explain a single example cited by Shapiro.
I wonder why?

This book is five stars. The trouble is the leftists will only give the book a star and say it's the worst thing in the world.

However, I've been there at the colleges. At Ferris State University I've seen pure socialism taught by a professor. She actually advocated that all children, when they reach the age of 5 years old, be taken from their parents and put into state schools for proper education. When I argued against this the end result was this poster was asked to leave the Teachers College of Ferris State University.

There should be signs posted on all state funded universities: Abandon Hope all ye who enter here.

The bad thing is this book is true. Christians, traditional families, American patriots, and capitalists are not welcomed at American universities.

God curse the college students of the 1960s.

All the teaching colleges should be disbanded. Why? They teach sedition and engage in treasonous activations.

This is a good book. The trouble is the leftists hate the truth. Traditional America already knows the problems.

However, not all is lost. Because state schools now charge so much money for education parents can send their kids to private schools that all believe in the USA, traditional families, and the church.

Why give money to the devil? Do not support University education in America.

Ben Shapiro undertakes the task of exposing the leftism that runs rampant on university and college campuses. His chapters, broadly arranged, cover everything from the Left's disdain for President Bush (some of it warranted), to the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, to the promiscuous culture which is encouraged by "intellectuals", to the fervent call by professors to be more green and finally the radical bias of many student groups on campus.

Shapiro quotes from a plethora of professors, including the likes of Peter Singer and Harris Mirkin. The very fact that these two hold professorial positions is an outrage in itself and demonstrates exactly how lenient the Left is to anything that runs countercultural to traditional morality.

Shapiro does not spend much time discussing religious post-secondary institutions (except for a noteworthy incident that occurred at a Methodist university) and I think this is because professors at Liberty University, etc... probably undermine his position that all post-secondary institutions are flooded with liberals and progressives. Still, I think that he is correct in claiming that most professors are very left-wing.

Shapiro's writing style in this book is flippant and often sarcastic. It helps add some humour and some bite to the book, and while he does succeed in landing several successful jabs at liberals, I think it ultimately distracts from his arguments and makes his work appear less academic.

This book kills any random thoughts that the tenured liberal far left extremists posing as college professors are not as bad as most sane Americans might think. As an ex-pat, born and schooled abroad but having gone to University here, I was appalled at the hopelessly liberal propeganda being thrown down the throats of these kids by these malignant narcissists.

Some of what is in this book will outrage you, some of it will sicken you, or perhaps you yourself are so sick you won't get it, either way the research is first rate and the conclusions enough to send your kids to a private school if it takes a second mortgage to do so.

It seems that many of our so-called professors are little more than pediophiles. Look it up. Some feel that having a student do a "performance art" piece that involves homosexual oral sex and defacating on each other, is a good use of your tax dollars? Look it up. Perhaps the anti-American sentiment that turns terrorists who attacked our country into hero's to be held in high esteem is more in line with your worldview? Look it up.

I would list all the sick professors, and the Universities who pay them to be despicable scumbags, but the list would be too long. Buy this book and read about it for yourself. Trust me, you will never look at the far left liberal agenda quite the same way. These aren't your father's liberals, content to smoke a little grass, and get laid by their students, nope, these folks make Caligula look uptight.

A must read. Get mad, get even. Write your Senator, and don't get suckered into believing that communism is the best way to run a country, as many of these whackos believe. Look that one up too.

Of course, Ben is right. Yet predictably, the campus protesters (and their off campus ilk) who support professorial fascism are here in droves to try to shout down 'Brainwashed' -- and not aware that they are helping to prove his point.

But the beauty of the left is that for all of their institutional strangleholds (Academia, Hollywood, mainstream media), they don't always win. Given this triad of influential societal perches, it's amazing there is still something of a 50-50% ideological split in this country.

The environments in which conservatives flourish happen to be in places that, in contrast to the left, encourage free exchange of ideas. AM talk radio and the Internet in the last decade have provided powerful alternative platforms for the Ben Shapiro of the country to test their ideas. (Where there's a will, there's a way!) And, when the left attempts to enter the fray (Air America, anyone?) they fall flat on their faces.

This is not to say that the left is inherently weak at defending their ideas. But as long as those places that the left controls takes on a totalitarian posture, and propagate free speech-stifling political correctness, her adherents will not develop the rhetorical skills or debating muscles to further the cause.

Honest leftists, and there are some (Paglia and Hitchens come to mind), should take Shapiro's critique to heart. Ironically, it may actually help them in the long run.

To all the reactionaries who gave critical reviews to "Brainwashed": 1) Shut Up! 2) Your review earns an "F." 3) You need to be re-educated, and explicitly show that you respect Shapiro's value system and his plea for diversity. Just kidding! :-) But how does it feel? :-).
I have just one quick point. In "Brainwashed," Shapiro notes that professors consider the New York Times, LA Times, etc. "mainstream" rather than liberal. My experience as a student was that professors considered the NY Times too *conservative.* For research projects, we were told to compare coverage of NY Times, LA Times, Time, Newsweek, etc. to left wing journals -- to see (and write) how conservative the "so called mainstream press" is. When some students asked if we could compare the NY Times to conservative journals (National Review, etc.), we were told no... because "there is almost no difference." The difference, it was said, "is just a matter of degree... their philosophies and framing are the same.... NY Times says we should spend X on defense, and National Review says we should spend X + 5%." Pity the poor student who quotes the NY Times without explicitly challenging their "adherance to the status quo." And forty lashes and re-education to the student who references conservative journals. My suggestion: Read National Review, but keep it a secret... keep a copy of The Nation, put National Review *inside* of it, and read away.... Indiscreet "fronting" with The Nation cover may even raise your grades!! Well, hang in there folks!

For many new students from conservative homes, college can be an unbelievably bizarre place. Simply, college can be a new level of liberal. Ben Shapiro, presently closing in on his twenty-first birthday, was sixteen when he first entered college at Berkeley. He was a conservative young student from a devoutly religious Jewish family. Four years later, he is the youngest syndicated columnist and the author of "Brainwashed: How Universities Indoctrinate America's Youth."

You can tell by reading the book that Shapiro was shocked at every turn in his four years at Berkeley. Personally, I can't blame him. College is shockingly liberal. Among the many stats that Shapiro quotes in his book, one is most telling. Nine percent of Professors voted for Bush in 2000. That's across the board. University professors are liberal, and if they aren't liberal, they're communist. Dealing with the incredible control the left has in universities both public and private is the purpose Ben Shapiro has given himself with this book.

For the first hundred pages, Shapiro uses lots of documented cases of professors' irrational hatred of the United States. Professors' views are given lots of coverage, at times, the book is quite dull because he's just listing the names of professors that signed some stupid peace document or protested some Israeli self-defense measure. It gets a little tedious, and he never actually challenges or refutes the professors' positions. He assumes that common sense people know these professors' assertions are wrong.

After all that, Shapiro then gives a short chapter on what can be done to weaken the leftist control of American institutions of higher learning. Though his answer to the problems are most likely off, and Shapiro doesn't spend any time refuting arguments, this book is a good read for a few reasons.

First, it's strong documentation of just how liberal professors across the country truly are. Second, there are some interesting anecdotes from Ben Shapiro's own college experience that makes some of the incidents one might encounter a little less shocking. And thirdly, it's another book that is putting the spotlight on American colleges and is one of the first trying to answer the question, "what is a conservative to do in college?"

Sure, Mr. Shapiro is quite young, and his writing reflects that. Some of his conclusions are naïve. However, this is a must read for conservative parents or students.

Even cultures that have no written language (and might even have been cannibals for thousands of years!) are described at our highest universities as culturally equivalent, and they are if there is no such thing as human spirit. All cultures are equal if the only thing that matters, and the only thing that does matter to these liberals, are the common animal characteristics that men share with animals such as lust and conceit.
Except that there is one culture that is not judged equal by them, one culture and one only that is despised, white boy's culture. And for having invented humanism, and for having died in the civil war to free the blacks and after that for having treated minorities to a better standard of living than can be found in their own native countries (now, two hundred years ago and two hundred years from now) we are described only as racists.
For there is one common theme that unites all 'liberal' ideology, one thing and one thing alone that lays all their other rants bare for our eyes to clearly see, and that is that in all things, they make no disguise of their bigotry, hatred and contempt for one particular group, and at all times and for all things take the side that finds fault - with white boys.
And the grotesque contortions of hatred that sometimes overcome the fake smiles that are permanently pressed into their posturing faces, and the loudly voiced accusations of 'racist' that they routinely scream in mixed company at you should you dare to question their sacred beliefs - which always center on their own conceit - do what they are intended to do, make the despised and weak college white boys - subservient.
Sadly to say, what we know as 'liberal' ideology nowadays, actually has two precepts. One, is that it is strictly forbidden to question the abilities of anyone who can't pass a simple test or whose native country is a backward slum. And two, that it would be insanity to have precept one, if they weren't actually unable to pass a simple test or their native countries weren't actually backward slums.
As said at the birth of our despised Western civilization, any physical thing is only an interruption to achievement of the mind. And that is what the vast majority of our 'liberals' cannot contribute - any achievement that can actually be produced and not stolen by the might of government, brutality and affirmative racism from the wretched masses who contribute, ignorant indeed, that the cultural elite have found justification for an extreme form of burden that has no difference to their broken backs than the brutality of a knife yielding thief. We can thank 'liberals' for mocking, dominating and taking credit for our horn of plenty, which like the contemptuous children that they are, that they will soon destroy, for reasons of their own sick agendas as made plain above.

This is really in response to the reviewer who states that he is from the same learning institution as Shapiro. I hate to break it to you, whoever you are, but no professor actually has to directly state their political ideology to you in order to infuse their liberal points of view into your "open" mind. When was the last time you saw Dan Rather, or Peter Jennings, or Tom Brokaw say "Good evening, America, I'm a Liberal Democrat and here's the liberal biased news....."???

Mr. Shapiro in this book expresses the deep hypocrisy, manipulation and dirtiness that characterize American Colleges today. From the administration to the faculty staff, their lethargy, brainwash and of course indoctrination of students towards major interests. From the bottom up, the faculty staff along with the administration is corrupted and struggles through selling themselves to keep their position sponsored by our taxes and of course extreme corruption. It is a fallacy to think that through sending your child to college today, this individual will become wiser, open minded and well professionally qualified. In fact, the oppression that students suffer in college to joins cheap leftists fraternities and join racist groups who act against the western democracy, using the democratic values for its own interests is overwhelming. Students to get good grades today have to agree with their monsters of thought for what they are not masters of thought. Terrorism and predator terrorists followers are gaining place in colleges.

Excellent book. A MUST READ.

Working at a college campus, I found Ben Shapiro's book insightful. To be honest, the first chapter or two was a bit slow for me. Maybe because I've already experienced most of this. The subsequent chapters, however, blew me away. It was disturbing to hear some of the quotes of these "teachers". The only reason I did not give this book 5 stars is because I think it missed a great opportunity to speak to existing or aspiring college students on why many of the professors' points were incorrect, or how to protect your intellectual integrity in the face of such biased teaching. For instance, explain why socialism is so wrong, etc. Reading this book as someone who already knows the answer , I was able to fill in the gaps. But if I were going to give this book to a graduating high school senior would they? Sounds like a great subject for a follow-up book. Keep up the good work Ben.

My university experience was full of liberal bias, from the "wheel of oppression" used in our freshman orientation to casual indoctrination by professors. Ben Shapiro's book brought back all these insidious practices, better used by terrorists than so-called liberal educators. You needn't be a card-carrying member of the vast Right-Wing conspiracy to deplore the brainwashing going on in our schools. The liberals, like roaches, scatter when light is shined on them. Hence, Ben has done us all a service, by exposing these critters. To be placed on the bookshelf alongside other classics like Dinesh D'Souza's <i>Illiberal Education</i> and Thomas Sowell's <i>Inside American Education</i>. A must-read.

'Brainwashed' is young Ben Shapiro's first book, and it shows.
We have a sharp kid here, reasonably well read for an undergraduate student of a public school. I've spent so much time in university environments (nearly half my life) that I claim a little more experience than Ben has swimming with the sharks.
Shapiro shows an astuteness by identifying the source of the 'brainwashing' as he sees it on the modern college campus: moral relativism. Whether he is right or not depends entirely on the existence of God and the universality of the commandments. If the ten commandments come from a real creator God, then the moral relativism from which all leftist thought flows falls like a house of cards.
And vice versa. The challenge from the Right is to prove God does NOT exist, since the challenge from the Left to prove his existence has been out there for a long time.
Call books like Shapiro's a counterrevolution. After centuries of breakdown of the old moral regime, a huge proportion of the populace looks around at the new, Left-dominated culture and sees an increase in human suffering and a decrease in love and regard for one's fellow human beings that flows from the thesis that there is nothing but the here and now. They see an increase in thoughtless, rude behavior and dishonesty, a callous disregard for the life of any besides the self (especially if the one being disregarded is a child, born or unborn) and like Shapiro they are alarmed at the coarsening and animalizing of humankind that occurs when he forgets to aim for the transcendent and wallows with the beasts instead.
I generally agree with Shapiro. But I'll go further: every place that has embraced the Judeo-Christian morality has seen an increase in human freedom, an increased regard for women and children, greater respect for the property and rights of others, and a less violent way of life. Every place that has discarded the Judeo-Christian way of life has seen increases in poverty, violence, crudeness and corruption.
Does this mean Christianity and Judaism are free of corruption?
Just the opposite: they acknowledge the existence of (and man's susceptibility to) evil, identify it generally accurately and provide tools to fight it. That is why, when the rise of the printing press allowed more and more general literacy and people began to read the Bible for themselves, a reformation, renaissance and enlightenment followed in rapid succession.
As our nation slips back into ignorance of spiritual realities, helpfully pushed into such a sorry state by the education cartel, we will see the most free and prosperous nation in the history of mankind dry up and blow away, to be replaced by another Eurosocialist nightmare. And it's a shame, because Europe is finding out every day that its very premise is a dead end. If we want to follow the rest of the world off the cliff, then I guess we will.
But voices like Shapiro's hint that perhaps, as the rebellion spreads, there is hope for our nation as a shining city on a hill for future generations as well as past. I think the worst of the leftists are hitting retirement age. As the baby boom generation ceases to weild decision-making power and becomes just one huge medical and social security nightmare for the rest of us, the revolt will pick up steam. When you realize, twenty years from now, that more of your paycheck is going to support some greedy geezer than is going to feed your own kids, you too will realize the futility of their plans. Large numbers of us will just shrug our shoulders and stop working. Why bust your ass for the government? It's already happened, most notably back in the Left's Camelot of the USSR. The same dynamic is now picking up steam in the EU. When that train wreck is finished, it has a good chance of repeating itself yet again in the United States of America.
Why is it that we can't learn from the failures of the Left that Life, Liberty and Property are the foundations of a free society, and pay some respect to our own roots, the most sound on the planet? If Shapiro can stick with the themes sounded in the first chapter of his book, engage in meaningful research to provide perspective, and derive conclusions from such sound scholarship, such a work would be, at least to me, more enlightening than the anthology of outrageous anecdotes he provides in most of this book.
But there is definitely a need for the anecdotes to be told to the world.
Here's hoping this is only Ben Shapiro's opening shot, with a devastating salvo of research to follow.

As one other reviewer has observed this book has struck a few nerves here.
One reviewer states that other philiosphies have been marginalized. That is the exact point of the book. ALL other philosphies are locked out except the leftist/socialist/statist philosophy.
As another reviewer observed todays universities are more like the old "Soviet Union re-education camps" than places of learning or "testing pre-conceived beliefs."
The wonderful and thoughtful review by Melisande Luna hits the point perfectly but where the review strays is the accusation of Shapiro being a conservative. I did not get that impression from his book at all, nor did Shapiro write anything to suggest that he was "right wing".
If anything this book has a libertarian perspective - libetarians of course having the same root word as "liberal" So you could say that this book has a classical liberal perspective on the issue - which is the proper one to have in this forum. Liberal allowing the "liberty" to engage in discussions and explore in any direction - exactly what todays universities are lacking.

I would venture that most of the leftists who are so outraged by Mr. Shapiro's work have not even read it. Regardless of the ideology of the work, it is quite impressive alone to be a published author and syndicated columnist by the age of 20. Of particular humor is the brilliant response by one malcontent 'Ben Shapiro is a 20 year old virgin". I don't even know where to begin with such a sophomoric and assinine comment, or even how remotely even if true this has to do with reviewing a book. When angered by someone who questions or exposes the glaring faults with their warped ideology, the left's only recourse seems to be ad hominem attack and name calling. If Mr. Shapiro is a 20 year old virgin (somehow this is a negative thing) it certainly is not because of circumstance, but probably because of the lack of intelligent partners at UCLA, as indicated by some of these "reviews".

This book is a stunner. Written by an insider, a University student with first hand experience at UCLA, the book is extremely detailed, well researched and documented. The facts themselves are not in dispute, as they are simply too well supported.

Whether it is espousing their own personal belief system based on moral relativism while categorically denying any other beliefs to be shared, or advocating the deliberate death of infant babies who are claimed to have less right to life than pigs, cows or dogs (Professor at Princeton, Page 2), or by supporting a "performance art" piece that involved oral sex and defecating in front of young students (Professor at the San Francisco Art Institute, Page 58), the fact that these Universities fund this with your tax dollars, while intolerantly and deliberately censoring any attempts at presenting a balanced view is beyond intolerant.

It gets much worse. So, how many of you are strong supporters of pedophilia? Your tax dollars and tenured professors in Universities near you are in fact speaking out in support of such behavior. A Professor at San Francisco State University states: "The category `child' is a rhetorical device for inflaming what is really an irrational set of values about pedophilia". (Page, 63) A Temple University Professor agrees: "Negative effects on child-victims of pedophilia are neither pervasive nor typically intense". A Professor at Johns Hopkins University takes it even further by stating: "Those who oppose pedophilia are motivated by self-imposed moralistic ignorance" (Page, 64). The book lists all the names and departments of the professors making these comments. These people should be behind bars, not teaching our youth.

The issue of the far left view of "tolerance" is one sided at best. In an amazing story, one man is denied employment because he is a Christian. A football coach for years at Nebraska, very highly regarded, applied for the head coach position at Stanford University. He describes the discrimination against him; "If I had been discriminated against for being black they never would have told me that, they had no problem telling me it was because of my Christian beliefs" (Page 91).

When it comes to supporting terrorism and inciting "hate-speech", the list of supporters among University faculty is too long to list. On September 11, 2001 a Professor of the University of New Mexico stepped up to the microphone to speak to his class about the horrific events that had just occurred: "Anyone who bombs the Pentagon has my vote" (Page 101). The well documented examples of this type of reaction fill dozens of pages. Santa Rosa Junior College defended one of its Professors, who warranted FBI attention by urging his students to write about assassination of the President by stating: "He has the right to say what he wants in the classroom." Apparently even if it violates federal law in doing so and encourages students to do the same? The University of South Florida openly sponsors known terrorists (Page 143).

The examples of anti-Semitism, and University sponsored groups who promote violence go on and on. At UCLA, the campus student group was led by a supporter of terrorism, who granted $12,322 to the Muslim Student Associated while the Jewish Student Union received $0.00. (Page 163). The University of California sponsors a group called MEChA who state openly: "federal immigration officials are pigs and should be killed, every one of them" (Page 171).

What I have just described is but a glimpse. The index of supporting documents, footnotes and sources is over 18 pages long. The book itself is a quick read, well written and organized. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is concerned about what is being promoted to our youth. Far beyond the media-friendly liberal propaganda and sound bites sanitized to be palatable to the masses, the true foundation for this worldview is opened up with shocking clarity.

Ben Shapiro is a sharp young man, articulate, who argues his points passionately. Having seen him on C-Span 2, he is quite glib as well. That having been said, Shapiro and his cohorts, Mike Adams at UNC-Wilmington etc. seem to miss the whole point of their rants. They rail about professors who come to class and push their liberal political beliefs while shutting down or badgering those who don't agree with them (read: conservative). They treat this as a violation of their First Amendment rights. This is not a free-speech issue, but a PROFESSIONALISM issue. If you are paying for a class on psychology, geology, biology etc. politics should not enter into any discussion unless it involves ethics and any professor who does not discuss both sides of the argument should be held accountable in their student evalutions. It should be pointed out that political science and history intimately involve politics and these subjects are intergal to understanding human political life. Pointing out that workers were exploited in the early stages of the Industrial Revolution does not mean that a Professor/Teaching Assistant is liberal (as I was accused of once). I have also been accused of pushing a liberal agenda after being asked my PERSONAL opinion on a particular subject, despite the fact that I prefaced my remarks by stating, "this is my personal opinion...." While I do agree that college professors are more liberal than society at large, conservatives should hold them accountable for doing their job, not necessarily demanding that they present both sides of an issue. I should like to point out that I am a graduate student in a fairly conservative history department that defies the blanket stereotype put forward by Mr. Shapiro et.al.

This book hits the nail on the head. Liberals have taken over universities, forcing their agenda on conservative and/or Christian kids. Don't believe me? Wisconsin universities are now prohibiting Christian students from having a Bible study in their own dorm room and on their own free time. (Steiger v. Lord-Larson). Speech codes are in place across the U.S., forcing Christian student to abandon their faith at the door or be brandished a "narrow-minded, intolerant, bigot" by officials on the basis of campus speech codes. See Sklar v. Clough. Many universities also do not allow Christian students to limit their club leadership to Christian. And on, and on, and on. This is real, folks. Don't the let the libs try to tell you its not.

It figures...liberals attempt to quash debate on an important issue by slandering a book they obviously haven't read. The fact that Ben Shapiro excites such vitriol from the "open minds" of the left can mean but one thing: This book is worth reading! Anything liberals hate is good! That, by the way, is a fundamental reality principle. Write it down and memorize it. Anywho, here's the truth, from a 56-year-old who's written 10 books himself (check out the the store reviews, if you need proof of this reviewer's credentials): "Brainwashed" is great, informative stuff. It's heavily factual, delightfully funny, and a devastating attack on America's socialist-run propaganda mills, also known as America's colleges and universities, especially those that are funded by taxpayers, most of whom would become libertarian tax refusers if they read Shapiro's book. Topic by topic, Shapiro addresses the issues of the day, explaining how each is twisted by a faculty dominated by people who hate America and all that it stands for and want to remake it in their own warped image. If these other liberal reviewers don't like Shapiro, that's their business, but to sabotage the reviewing system is the act of an intellectual midget. In fact, after reading Shapiro's book, I'd be not the least bit surprised to discover that the one-star reviews contained herein weren't submitted by nervous "America is the Great Satan" professors attempting to do on the store.com what they do on campus: to wit, brainwash. I sense that big things are to come from this young man. Keep an eye on him. He rocks!

There is an old radical bumper sticker which said "Question Authority". Ben applies it to academia... to its dismay and embarrassment.
Ben successfully pierces the curtains hiding the monolithic liberal control of the university system... OK, he sets fire to the curtain, exposing the de-evolution of what was once classical and relatively balanced education to today's neo-nihilism obscured in academese--a jargon which renders thoughts incomprehensible to anyone off campus. Academese is no more indicative of clear thinking than is speaking with a French accent or the Queen's English. It just sounds fancy. But so can a member of Flat Earth Society sound fancy and "nuanced". Applying Occam's Razor, any real thinker, like Ben, would conclude that simplifying usually comes closer to the truth and Ben pares down ideas and facts to their core.
I remember campus rallies at Columbia in the early 1980's about the US involvement in El Salvador. The rallies were far closer to a "US out of North America" theme. I lived across the hall from George Stephanopolous and knew Ted Rall. If one can't say that 98% of all campus activism is leftist (and most of the rest of campus believes in an amoral MTV-ism), one is incapable of stating or observing the truth.
One legitimate concern is that there needs to be a clear separation between academics in the humanities and those in the hard sciences. The politics of the latter more closely approximate the politics of society at large. Moreso, devoted to reproducible outcomes, scientists are less likely to buy into the secularist religion that holds affirmative action, politically correct speech and hatred of Western Culture to be dogma.
Some solutions for the infantile campus. 1) No PhDs should be offered to anyone who wasn't employed for 3 years in the private sector. 2) No tenure for anyone who hasn't worked at least 2 years in the private sector after gaining one's PhD. 3) Tenure demerit points for pontificating outside one's field of qualified expertise (Chomsky, Said, et al) or publishing more books on topics outside one's field than in one's field--accumulate points until one loses tenure and has to requalify as would any newcomer. 4) Affirmative action for conservatives in Liberal Arts departments, say, a minimum quota of at least 40% of the tenured faculty.
One shouldn't be surprised at the gutless, unsubstantiated and anonymous (surprise!) attacks from the one-star reviewers. Look for reviews from people who are willing to stand behind what they write and sign their names to it, ignore the rest.
Accountability is kryptonite to liberals. The only solution is to buy the book and read it for yourself. If it raises uncomfortable feelings... debate the facts, not the person.
Ann Coulter, Michael Barone, Michelle Malkin, David Horowitz, Michael Medved, Hugh Hewitt, Daniel Pipes, Robert Spencer, Larry Elder, Ward Connerly and Jeff Jacoby provide SOME of the glowing reviews of Brainwashed. My suspicion is that after reading it for yourself and not merely accepting the baseless ad hominem attacks of others, you will begin to follow the career of this up-and-comer.

I will admit that it has been several years since I was in college, but even then I felt that only the liberal viewpoint was taught. I find it amusing that several detractors of this book did not even read it, or stooped to the usual liberal tactics of personal attacks against those who don't agree with them. The most disturbing point, however, is that a vast group of individuals who tout themselves as "liberals" are anything but and seem to constantly stoop to using half truths and almost terrorist tactics to force the rest of the world to share their beliefs. Isn't that something we're fighting against now? Read this book!

After reading the reviews, I immediately ordered books for high school graduates (my daughter is one of them) for graduation presents. They will need this book along with Mike Adams "Welcome to the Ivory Tower of Babel" to survive in college. And yes, I read the 1 star reviews, which, you will note, are anonymous, and just spews hate. If the liberals hate this book, then I must have it. When will they "get it?"
Good job, Ben!

This book is a must read for anyone entering into college as a first-year student or the parent of a college student. It is revealing, shocking and will not disappoint. Everything that Ben Shapiro writes about I have experienced already within my first two months here at the University of Pittsburgh. It's not enough to just know of the bias of professors at universities, but you must be able to recognize it. After reading "Brainwashed" I have learned to notice when my professor's political opinions and beliefs bleed into the course work, and I now know what to watch out for. Ben Shapiro is looking out for college students and their parents. It's a very well written book and is based on the actual experiences of Shapiro. I have been lending it to friends in my dorm, and they all love it. Everyone I know that has read it can say that they now notice their professors reflecting the same behavior as Ben writes about. Read it before you are brainwashed.

As a recent graduate from an Ivy League school, I can verify that liberal indoctrination is alive and well on our college campuses. Knowing this, I purchased a copy of Ben Shapiro's book, hoping to find some a thoughtful presentation of the truths I'd found in my own experience, namely how conservative college students are discriminated against or made to feel uncomfortable, as well as how conservative professors can't get hired or get tenured. Instead, what was presented was a tired Rush Limbaugh-like diatribe on "The rediculous things that liberal professors believe". I walked away saying to myself, "of course they think those things, they're liberals!" Essentially, while the book is often witty and potent, it fails to drive home its central thesis or reach towards any deeper, underlying issues. For a much better (though slightly outdated) effort towards this end, pick up a copy of Dinesh D'Souza's wonderfully poignant "Illiberal Education" instead.

Thank you Ben! This book needed to be written! Every high schooler turning college freshman should be given this book as a gift for graduation. I wish I had known what I was to encounter before I attended university. Had I known the one-sided, biased view that most of my professors would inappropriately advocate in the classroom I would have prepared myself for it more adequately beforehand. This book exposes this bias and can prepare you for what you soon discover firsthand. I thought college was supposed to be a freemarketplace of ideas, a forum
for diverse discourse and discussion. Instead conservative viewpoints are silenced, and professors use their great influence to inappropriately brainwash their students. Thank you Ben. Thank you for you courage, your strength, and for your committment to spreading the truth. Thank you for giving a voice to the voiceless and let us know we are not alone in this struggle.

This book fascinated me. I graduated from college w/ a liberal arts degree a couple of years ago and there is a lot of truth to what this guy says. This is the way I saw it. Colleges do in fact encourage thinking outside of the box. A liberal arts degree is designed for precisly that purpose; to look at things from 'all the angles.' There is nothing inherently wrong w/ this. In fact it is truly a great education. However the

problem lies in our liberal culture of how this ability to think outside the box is a badge of value; and how those who are supposedly 'better' it are actually WORTH more than somebody who just goes along w/ what his family or religion has taught them. It is truly a dirty thing in this country to promote ideas that come from a very nuclear/local source such as your family or your religion w/o adequate regard to a thorough 'inquiry.' On a college campus, to fall into that trap is the greatest of all sins and this phenom is partlywhat this guy is getting at it.

In other words, it IS a very unpopular stance in college

to be an outspoken conservative b/c people automatically assume that you are just gettingyour ideas from your religion or your family, that you just don't 'get it' in terms of looking at things from a different perspective. What we are seeing more and more is that liberals are becoming the ones to do the labeling and make groundless accusations and assumptions without any investigation. They are guilty of the very accusations they

throw around. As already mentioned throughout these reviews, the ones who gave negative remarks I noticed didn't attack this guy's argument. They mostly just attacked HIM, calling

him a religious zealout, fascist, bigot, or whatever. Why? Because of the assumption that this guy can't 'think outside' the box. The biggest rub of all is that ultra liberals think they are doing society a favor by 'cleaning' it up of biggots.

sincerely

-a college grad w/ a liberal arts degree (3.9 GPA)

Finally!! A young person with a brain that understands what the liberal universities and professors are doing to our kids. Very well done! This is so true that Barnes and Noble won't even sell this book, but the store.com does. This is so true, but for some reason is allowed to continue all over our country. Most alarming is this is not just Democrats on the Left, but those even more Left than that are brainwashing our kids!!!

I've only taken 3 courses in community college. My first two were critical thinking and C++ and I experienced no liberal bias. My 3rd class was American Government taught by a Liberal Socialist Feminist. This was my first and only experience with what Shapiro wrote about. This teacher actually made us purchase her $20 book, which was nothing but 85 pages printed and binded by the school print shop. It was all about how the government should pay for 100% of day care for women and pass laws for mandantory 4 years of maturnity leave. About 20% of my final was based on what was in that book.
She assigned us an assignment where we had to go out and pretty much preach her agenda to someone and then write an essay about it. Didn't matter if we agreed with her, we had to do it. When asked by a male student if he could preach against her agenda, he was told he would be failed on the assignment.
I talked with her about this privately while I walked with her to the campus parking lot. I asked her if she was being fair. Her response was "you must be a republican". I said yes even though I'm an independent. Her exact words were "I'll convert you..." stopped walking, stared, then nodded, "I'll convert you.".
I guess it's a good thing I waited till I was 26 to go to college. It's even better that one of my first classes was critical thinking.
I've been in the real world long enough to know not to believe things people say. Especially when they don't back it up with evidence or supporting opinions. This book has both. It's a great read if you're a conservative. If you're a liberal, it's going to piss you off when you realize you were brainwashed. It explains the one stars. I can completely understand the liberals hatred for this book. How would you react if you suddenly became aware of the fact that everything you believe in is wrong and you only believe in it because you were brainwashed. Kind of makes you feel like you're on the bottom of the food chain.

I visited my local bookstore and picked up a copy of this book. I had read about it on Townhall.com, since I have read young Mr. Shapiro's columns for the last two years. I had high expectations of this book because I've truly enjoyed Shapiro's columns. Luckily, the book exceeded my expectations. It's powerful, persuasive, and roaringly entertaining. There are innumerable anecdotes (all footnoted), and Shapiro's comments are pungent and witty. He discusses bias topic by topic, and goes into depth about student newspapers and student activist groups. The ringing endorsements on the back by Ann Coulter, Michael Barone, Michelle Malkin, and David Horowitz, among others, are accurate. I'm sure this book will give the liberal elitists heartburn at the very least.

This book is 100% accurate. It should be required reading for the college bound seniors.

I attended an art college (more libeal than regular colleges) in the late 80's, when politcal correctness was just coming into being. I was confused as to why we needed to be "open minded" and "accepting" of everything, except when it came to my conservative values, no one was accepting or open minded. Usually, it was me against the rest of the class in any kind of discussion.

When I look back, my husband and my faith saved me from becoming a left wing nut. I had started to take a left turn on all kinds of liberal causes. Oh, to think of what I might have become! Now as I prepare to send my oldest daughter off to college, I will have her read this and pass it on to her friends.

Bravo! A+! (Even though if your professors wold have given you an F) Keep up the good work, we need more books like this!

This book was an entertaining read. Still being in collge, I can relate to almost all of Mr. Shapiro's observations. For example, my first day in a Spanish course my professor proceded to tell us all about the great crimes America had perputrated against Central America. The next day in orientation I was treated to a 20 minute rant about how George W. Bush was undermining civil liberties with the Patriot Act. Oh! And did I mention these were my first and second days in college?
Has anyone else noticed the high number of professors here repeating liberal views while denying a liberal bias on college campuses and blasting Mr. Shapiro? I guess education really doesn't equal intelligence, huh?

"Brainwashed" is a book I have been meaning to read for a long time. I heard about this book back in the summer of 2004 when it was first published and I quickly added it to my wish list. Since I have worked as a university professor myself, I was curious to find out this book would approach this subject of college indoctrination. This seemed like a book I would enjoy, if nothing else, just to see how and why the author feels the way he does and to see if my own experience at the front of a university classroom in any way parallels what he feels is a growing problem at institutions of higher learning.

Chapter two is one of the better parts of this book because what Shapiro says in this chapter does hold true: A large percentage of university faculty members are, indeed, registered Democrats and they generally have a pro- government intervention mindset. This is not fantasy. It is fact and there are numerous studies to back it up. I have seen many different quotations on the political disparity at universities but they all draw the same conclusion: That anywhere from 55 to 75 percent of university professors are registered Democrats while usually less than 20 percent are registered Republicans, with Libertarians, Greens, independents, and other parties making up the political positions of the remaining faculty members. Why higher education seems to attract Democrats and liberal- thinking individuals more than any other, I'm not certain. But this is a fact of life in the university system.

As for the rest of the book, the author provides countless examples of why he feels that liberalism is rampant at universities and how opposition voices are generally silenced. He breaks his observations down with a corresponding chapter for different topics. In each one, the book explains how university professors almost always seem to take the liberal positions on the important issues of the day and it provides examples to back up what the author feels is a national epidemic. The examples given are factual, but there is one problem: Aside from the facts presented in chapter two about the dominance of registered Democrats over registered Republicans in professorships across the country, the facts presented in the remainder of the book are carefully selected to back the book's point of view. They do not represent official, scientific studies or a general cross- section of America's universities. In other words, this book makes no effort to find examples of professors who think in a pro- conservative fashion (of which there are plenty) because that would take away from the credibility of the arguments. Instead, this book focuses on some of the more outrageous examples of liberalism gone mad, with quotes from university professors who favor sexual liberation and experimentation; who are professed atheists; who believe America's arrogance caused the September 11, 2001 attacks and sympathize with the political philosophy of Al Queda; who think Jews are out to take over the world; etc., etc. I don't doubt for a second that there are some more eccentric professors out there who genuinely hold these views. They do exist, and the quotes presented here are real. But just because a few radicals exist at America's universities doesn't mean that all or even a large majority of professors think in this manner.

I spent several years as a student and I have served as a Professor of Finance and judging from my own experience, I would be hard- pressed to find even a few examples to back up what this book claims to be a widespread problem. Take, for example, the chapter on sexual promiscuity and the supposed endorsement that sexual experimentation gets from professors. I can remember a few psychology professors talking about sex, when it was relevant to the subject at hand. And I can recall a casual joke here and there about sex when I was an undergrad. But I can't name even one example of a professor who went on the public record encouraging students to have sex as much as possible. The same is true with other topics presented in this book, like the one about the belief in God. Thinking of the different professors I listened to in lecture halls and the professors I have gotten to know as an instructor, I can think of only one or two who were atheistic and who openly talked about it in the classroom and/or in school publications. To hear the author talk, one would think that the anti- God mindset is the norm for college professors all over America.

Even though this book is obviously one- sided and very contrived, there are a few things it says about the university mindset that actually are true and need to be changed. One thing it points out that does bear resemblance to reality is the silencing of opposition viewpoints on campuses under the "politically correct" banner. It is common for speakers to be refused a chance to speak at a campus if their talk deals with a touchy subject that could offend students, like anti- affirmative action viewpoints, gun rights, and others. Universities like to claim they are open communication zones where free speech is the absolute rule of law. Unfortunately, this is not the case. I can recall countless instances where speakers who were either pro- war, against affirmative action, anti- abortion, or anything else that is conservative- leaning were denied the right to speak at a university. This book is correct with its complaints in this area. Speakers, even if they have an unpopular viewpoint to present, should at least be given a fair chance to address the student population. No one has to show up and listen if they don't want to.

This book does come up with some humorous facts about universities in general and this is another part of the book that made it a little more bearable. In one part of the book, for example, the author mentions some of the sex columns that are part of different campus newspapers. Some of these columns have titles like "Between the sheets", "The Wednesday Hump", and "Come Again". And author Ben Shapiro is also quite the purveyor of sarcasm, using his witty quips to close out different sections of the book and give the reader a chance to chuckle a little bit at some of the more outrageous quotes and claims made by university faculty.

The author of this book went to UCLA as an undergrad and this is where he formed his basic opinions presented in this book. According to the author, UCLA is a wild and wacky place; overloaded with liberal, pro- abortion, anti- American, anti religion, and pro- environmental extremists who teach all the classes and press their views on the students. I don't know much about UCLA (aside from its sports), but I find it hard to believe that everyone there is an extremist out to change the world one student at a time into atheistic, anti- gun, anti- American soldiers of socialism. Like I said before, I can believe there are some professors like this because I have read some of their quotes myself. But just because a few people are over the top in their thinking doesn't mean this is the norm on college campuses. Likewise, just because registered Democrats far outnumber registered Republicans in college faculties doesn't mean that all of these professors toe the line of the party's more extremist faction and try to indoctrinate America's youth.

Ben Shapiro is a man with a bone to pick when it comes to academia and he feels that the conservative viewpoint has all but vanished from America's university classrooms. "Brainwashed" presents a few valid points about the tendency of universities to shun unpopular opinions and stifle free speech if it offends certain groups. But the rest of the book- that which accuses the vast majority of America's university professors of being borderline pinkos at best and anti- American communists at worst- is a little far fetched and its final chapter- the one that is supposed to offer a plan of action to combat this trend- needs to be much longer than six pages if it is meant to be taken seriously. The writing isn't the best either, with too many sentence fragments to count and several two- word or three word sentences to close out a specific thought.

This book is a sub- par effort from this young author. It is contrivance at its finest from a UCLA graduate who has witnessed the supposed "indoctrination" of America first hand and wants to tell the world about his findings. If you read it, take it with a grain of salt. There is some funny wit but the facts presented do not present the full picture of the university experience.

If this book were merely well written, it would have been enough. If it had only meticulous footnotes and sourcing as it does, it would shine from out of the pile of empty headed rants that pass as serious research. If the writer (barely 20 years old? incredible!)had managed only to present the remarkably tight logic and penetrating arguments that he does, it would have been a great read.
Amazingly, young MISTER Shapiro manages all of the above with ease and grace. Even if you believe you could never ever agree with the main thesis of the book, you must read it. It makes you think, and you would be hard pressed to refute the notion that college campuses are hot beds of a one sided (liberal) ideology. Critic or one of the faithful, you owe it to yourself to read this outstanding work.

As a current college student it is amazing how dead on this book really is. The question to pose to the liberal readers is whether they actually WENT to college? Anyone who pegs this book as anything other than truth can't have been paying attention in class.

I have just started reading Ben Shapiro's fine book, and enjoy the wit as well as the wealth of egregrious examples of university indoctrination. Chapter 3 deals with pro-Marxist professors, their blind devotion to that discredited ideology is astounding. Considering that Ann Coulter, David Limbaugh, and David Horowitz blurb his book, I look forward to following his future endeavors.

I picked up Brainwashed thinking it would be a concise and researched book about the funneling of impressionable minds through the fixed mold that is the current college academia, but what I found was a little researched, ranting, and discriminating account of some undergraduate's experience as a college student in California.

First and formost the format, rather than the content was what bothered me the most. I can credit Shapiro for amassing a large amount of quotes from professors, but he does little to debunk them other than following them with a short phrase poking fun at them.

Examples:

"Diana Chapman Walsh, president of Wellesley College, made the same distinction between spirituality and religion to a group of UCLA students. 'Religion is something we can perhaps do without,' she told the students. She defined spirituality as love, compassion, and forgiveness-and she said that spirituality does not involve faith. Thank you, flower-child."

"So how does fellow leftist Professor Paul Ehrlich, who sometimes morphs into a religious expert, explain religion's role in the world? 'Religion...continues to play a role in maintaining the status of elites today, for instance in justifying poverty and wealth as expressions of God's will.' Actually, I use religion to justify mental acuity as an expression of God's will. I'm sure God must have a reason for making Ehrlish such a babbling idiot."

"Islam means peace, after all, right? Actually, not really--the literal translation is 'submission.' But professors like to think so."

"When Professor Orlando Patterson of Harvard University was interviewed on NewsHour with Jim Lehrer regarding President Bill Clinton's perjury, he said 'I think it's important to emphasize the fact that there are no absolutes in our moral precepts. Kant may have believed that, and some fascists do....[P]erjury is not an absolute. You don't have absolute rules here." Wow. Perjury is okay because there are no absolutes. And if you don't agree, you're a 'fascist'."

It is the many paragraphs structures like this that make up the meat of this book, and therefor make it not really worth your time. Also there are many contradicting statements throughout, such as "Professors hate God, and they hate organized religion even more." and then in the same very chapter saying "[Professors] discard organized religion as foolishness, except for Islam, which they enshrine."

If they enshrine Islam that would imply that they don't hate God, or Islam as an organized religion....his statements just don't add up.

Also, almost all of his critique of Islam is false. Islam stem from the word peace, and is commonly referred to as meaning "peace." The greeting of muslims "Assallumalaikum" means "peace be upon you." The word "salam" means peace, and Islam comes from the word "salam", so it is directly related to the word "peace".

Many times he claims that Muslims believe Christians and Jews are non-believers and will burn in hell. Here are some quotes from the Quran (which he completely avoids quoting):

[5:82] "And you will find that the closest people in friendship to the believers are those who say, 'We are Christian.' This is because they have priests and monks among them, and they are not arrogant."

3:113-114]. "They are not all the same; among the followers of the scripture(people of the book), there are those who are righteous. They recite GOD's revelations through the night, and they fall prostrate.

They believe in GOD and the Last Day, they advocate righteousness and forbid evil, and they hasten to do righteous works. These are the righteous. "

[2:62 & 5:69] "Surely, those who believe, those who are Jewish, the Christians, and the converts; anyone who (1) believes in GOD, and (2) believes in the Last Day, and (3) leads a righteous life, will receive their recompense from their Lord. They have nothing to fear, nor will they grieve."

And here is a quote from the end of Shapiro's section about Islam:

"Professor Akbar Ahmed of Princeton calls Islam 'the third great religion of America,' and says that it is 'one of the most misunderstood religions in the world.' 'How many people,' he asks, ' know the greatest names of God in Islam are [the most compassionate] and [the most merciful]?' That's good to know when Christians and Jews are burning in Allah's eternal flames."

It just doesn't make sense what he is saying, it doesn't connect with reality. I do agree there is some possible confusion that might arise when the Quran says "the Jews call Ezra a son of God", but that was in reference to a specific group of Jews at a specific time in a specific place (as is commonly done in the Quran when certain passages were "revealed" in response to certain events).

He has so many sections where he just presents quotes from people opposing his position and doesn't do anything to debunk their claims and just ends with a little snippet saying "gee that was stupid."

Example:

"A guest lecturer, Professor Pamela Munro, came to speak to my linguistics class. During the course of the lecture, she casually said, 'What can be done to save our vanishing linguistic heritage? [ You should] discourage discrimination against bilinguals or people who speak minority languages.' (Translation: Force companies and businesses to hire people who speak 'minority languages.') How about, instead, teaching people English? What a concept."

Claiming that the Professor was implying that we force businesses to hire minority language speaking workers is ludicrous. He pulled that out of nowhere and tries to make the reader think that is what they are saying. She is merely saying that we should not discriminate agains the minority language culture and society.

He claims things that are just rediculous:

"Many professos excuse and even encourage pedophilia--sex between adults and children."

While this claim is obviously false, he claims "A few professors have interesting perspectives on bestiality as well." A few professors? That could be as little as three people. And I would not be surprised if three professors were wackos, considering how many professors we have today.

As for moral absolutism, it is an interesting debate. But what he does is attempt to make the reader believe that professors are trying to say something they aren't:

"Of course evil exists. Anyone who believes there is an excuse for rape is evil. Anyone who believes in killing disable children is evil. Anyone who flies planes into buildings with the intent of killing civilians is evil. But not according to the professors."

Well, apparently our professors advocate all of these things then, right? Well.....not really. When he uses the word "excuse" he is referring to many sociological themes indicating that there are certain conditions which tend to support terrorism. This is not an "excuse" for terrorism, nor does it make it "not evil". But it does provide a REASON for it. What you must keep in mind is that the hijackers of Sept. 11th didn't think what they did was evil, therefor it is not a universal "evil".

Even though they are pretty much crazy, there are a lot of people who don't think Sept 11th was evil, because they think it is justified. That is the thing, those people are thinking only of themselves, and it is an evil thing to do, but because of their social and economical situation it seems 'OK' to them, and because they make up a significant percentage of the world's population, they rule out the possibility of there being a universal evil.

There are actions, and there are intentions, and all must be included.

I hope my review was helpful in not bashing any political party or ideology--I tried to look at the book from an unbiased point of view. I believe if Shapiro rewrites this book with a lot more research and evidence then it would be a much better book. I give it 2 stars for a good try, and discussion of a lot of aspects of college life and academia, but lacking much substance or backup.

Things are actually so bad that it's very difficult to debate this issue with leftists. Most college students who didn't have a strong affiliation one way or the other before going to college have no idea that what they are fed is political propaganda. They view challengers of orthodoxy as ill-educated, bitter outcasts, and can't bring themselves to consider opposing views seriously. At the same time, they keep parroting vacuously about open-mindedness and tolerance, which is equated with holding liberal views.

The supposition may be correct. The teachers do present knowledge that some may dislike as it does not for the most part the biases they brought with them to school. That does not mean the teaching is full of lies. It more likely that the students' biases are wrong. Having done some teaching myself. I experienced the tricky and dishonest methods that were used to attack any teacher who did not agree with their biases and politics.
Why go to school to learn what you already know?

Those who can, do. Those who cannot, teach. Universities teach, but they also are a place where the blind professors are leading the blind students. It takes years for common sense conservative graduates to "unlearn" all they are force-fed by liberals at America's universities. Conservatives have little voice on college campuses, and are met with dersion, even ostracized by the Professorial staff, when they exercise that. My alma mater, Cornell, is one of the worst!

I think this is a great book. My biggest concern when I started "Brainwashed" was that it was going to be filled with too much opinion without quotes or statistics. I was pleasantly surprised as I read, as there were probably three to five quotes on each page, and a statistic about every two or three. Gathering all the information cited for this book must have been tedious, but it makes for an impressive read. I highly recommend this book.

this book raises an interesting premise. to what extent does the nature of your views harm your progress within higher education, a place that admittedly is quite left leaning. i can see how Ben could become bitter simply because he felt that expressing himself would harm his mark, however this becomes exactly what lets the book down. Ben is, for want of a better phrase, a bit up himself, he turns what would be an interesting book on the value of free speech and critical thinking in education into a self centred attack on what he calls "the left". he becomes consumed in his own bitterness and ironically, judges people academically simply because they dont agree with him.

I am a Republican and feel that Universities are indeed too left leaning, with no help from this book (then again, corporate America is a little too right leaning, if we want to be fair). The first disappointment was Ben Shapiro's prose, which are too droning and, since he loves using either short or convoluted sentences, too monotonous. The book had some good content, but a lot of it felt like street-market fish, stinking and poorly packaged. If you want to be convinced one way or another on this issue, or educated on the topic, you'll be disappointed. If you already think that universities are evil places, then you'll love this book. Really. It is unfortunate, but the book reads that divisively. Ben Shapiro cites anecdotal, rather than representative data and his arguments are generally poor and repetitive. Unfortunately, I doubt that this book will force some change in academia. Instead, the book makes Republicans seem like poorly educated extremists. I was very disappointed.

This is an important book, perhaps the best book on higher education since Dinesh D'Souza's controversial bestseller, Illiberal Education. Using example after well-documented example, Ben Shapiro leaves little doubt that most elite universities today are bastions of liberalism. Though these universities herald "diversity" and "tolerance," they allow about as much debate as Russian gulags. It is a shame that so little has changed since D'Souza's book was published in 1990-91.

When I rifled through this book at a friends house, I thought it was going to be another trite "lol liberalz r dumb" but I soon discovered that not only was Brainwashed well written, but also very accurate in describing its subject matter. As a current product of Americas University system, this book is a sorry reminder of our mistakes, and the publics apathy about what is really going on. I heartily recommend this book to all college students and adults.

Ben Shapiro is brilliant, his presentation wit and style bring life and light to the problems that many of us college students face in the classroom. For all students facing the liberal atmosphere of "college life" and who understand the problems that the Ivory tower present, this book is a necessity and a must read. Ben is a well-spoken and truly respectable individual and I presume and hope that this is only the first of many books that will surface from this true genius.