~ Mike S. Adams (Author)
http://www.amazon.com/Welcome-Ivory-Tower-Babel-Conservative/dp/1891799177/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1205255151&sr=1-1
From Publishers Weekly
This lively collection of essays surveys the campus
culture wars from the conservative side of the trenches. Adams, a criminal
justice professor at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington, takes a big
swipe at the politically correct, feminists, gay activists, the diversity
establishment and what he portrays as the mealy-mouthed administrators and
thin-skinned colleagues and students who are quick to fire off thoughtless
allegations of racism and sexism. He takes on Cornel West, for his defense of
the 1992 Los Angeles riots, and The Vagina Monologues, for a general
over-ripeness, but mostly sticks to his own experiences asserting First
Amendment rights against what he feels is the heavy-handed and censorious
climate of left-wing orthodoxy at his own school. Adams clearly relishes the
role of conservative gadfly. He casts himself as the eternal target of tirades
in the cafeteria or the men’s room, and enjoys offering up provocative Modest
Proposals, like university affirmative action programs for underrepresented
Republicans, or a Men’s Resource Center where victims of false rape accusations
can retreat for counseling. The book’s last 50 pages are devoted to an
acrimonious exchange of e-mails with a radical student over the September 11
attacks, which escalated into an accusation of libel and an investigation of
Adams’s e-mail by UNCW, and finally ignited a national press rumpus that landed
him a guest spot on Hannity and Colmes. Some of the contretemps he writes about,
like a professor’s wild charges of sexual harassment and "terrorism" against
some colleagues, or a catfight between two female professors over a male job
applicant, seem like little more than departmental politics run amok. But Adams
has a dry wit and a sharp, if partisan, eye for the excesses and fatuities of
the left, one that raises important issues about attitudes toward free speech
and tolerance on campus. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of
Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Product Description
Remember the
ivory tower of Babel in the Old Testament? College campuses are more biblical
than liberals think.
As Mike S. Adams explains in his new book Welcome to
the Ivory Tower of Babel: Confessions of a Conservative College Professor, most
college campuses are in a state of turmoil, not unlike that of the story in
Genesis.
Adams was an atheist and a Democrat when he started teaching
criminal justice at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington in 1993.
However, when he renounced those stands and became a Christian and a Republican
in the late 1990s, he also began taking a stand against the lack of diversity
and equal treatment of all men and women at his university.
Adams first uses
a batch of letters he penned to university leaders and students to illustrate
the irony of diversity and affirmative action at UNC. He then offers
column-formatted prose to explain and challenge the move toward a politically
correct and non-Christian campus environment. Hardcore feminism and "Queer
Studies" are examples he cites that are flourishing on campus, while schools
risk losing funding unless they downplay connections to Christ, Christianity and
faith.
The final part of Adams' book is dedicated to explaining the
controversy that brought him and the university into the news in 2001 and 2002 ?
his challenge that free speech has its consequences and that all Americans -
conservative and liberal alike -have the right to express their opinions.
While Adams touches on many hot topics, including abortion, racism, and
Christianity, the book's primary thesis is one of encouragement. "Conservative
students can succeed on college campuses," he argues, "just as can their liberal
counterparts." He urges college administrators to treat all students with
fairness and dignity, regardless of political or religious views.
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