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Rating: 
Summary: Fresh
Review: "The Shadow University" gives a profound and hair-raising analysis of the conflict between the freedom of expression and idiotic extremes of political correctness on today's American campuses (with the latter, sadly, winning). The examples (hundreds of them) are at times absurd to the point of being comical, and at times are puzzling and horrifying, leaving me with the feeling of frustration and helplessness. After reading the book you will learn that today's universities assume a role of imposing "officially designated group identities" (p.193), proclaiming some groups to be more "sensitive" or incapable to defend themselves than others, requiring, therefore, an extra care and protection: "A white male student who lost a father in Vietnam is deemed strong enough by racial definition to hear a professor call his late father a "baby killer," whereas a woman or black must be protected from the punch line of a joke" (p. 193, Individual Identity: The Heart of Liberty). To make sure you know to what group you belong, most colleges hold separate orientation meetings for their incoming freshmen (based on race, gender, or sexuality - as if that has something to do with introducing a new student to campus life, facilities, libraries or majors). Why do they do that? The vast majority of people I've met while going to school viewed themselves as unique individuals and not representative of a specific demographic group. You will learn that despite of theoretically being protected by the First Amendment, you are likely to be condemned and, in some cases, even prosecuted, if your ideas are not supported by popular opinion and someone decides that he or she is offended by you. You will learn that if you are accused of harassment or offence, you have almost no chance of a fair trial: "of the fifty-eight institutions that provided data on disciplinary procedures, 36.2% did not allow cross-examination by the accused student, and 37.9% did not allow the student to have legal counsel. Staggeringly, 55.2% did not assure an impartial decision maker, 60.3% did not guaranty a right to confront accusers, and 91.4% provided students with no assistance of any kind" (p. 278, The Rules of Civilization). I am not sure if this book is a necessary reading for an 18-year-old who is about to leave for college, as it may just scare that person to death. It would probably be better to finish your freshman year, form your own opinion on this matter and then read the book, as it will help you understand some of the things you might have experienced on campus. However, the book is definitely a must read for any college administrator or a faculty member.
Rating:
Summary: Illuminating
Review: a great book when it comes to content. this author is surely an expert on the societal decay of the american university system. kors knows his stuff and tries to make sure he imparts his passion and knowledge to the reader. if you enjoy meticulous detail and raw density, you will love this book. if you like your knowledge in smaller bite sizes that are easier to digest, you might be better off with D'Souza's short book on the same general subject.
Rating:
Summary: more horrifying because of its careful documentation
Review: A lawyer and a professor team up to take on the American university establishment! But in this case, the two Davids have an ally: the U.S. court system. Taking college after college to court, the pair not only obtained results exonerating those faculty and students denied their rights of free speech and due process but logged some blistering denunciations of the colleges for their denial of basic Constitutional rights from the judges who heard the cases. Kors and Silvergate have since set up a website where students and teachers can register what is being done to them. Visit it at www.thefire.com and read some of what's happening. If that doesn't scare you, don't bother watching Frankenstein.
The only thing one can say against the book is that its focus is so restricted. But that is also the book's strength. For a full and thorough account of what is going on and how it got that way, you need to read other books on the subject. One of the nice things about this book is that the two authors are liberals. This is not some biased conservative ranting. It's a pity that conservatives don't read this book and find out what true liberalism is. If they did, maybe they'd stop calling the people who have taken over the colleges "liberals."
Rating: 
Summary: Paranoia
Review: As a veteran of a number of "left wing" organizations, most of whom were obsessed with the hiring of recent college graduates with conspicuously ideological leanings, I can understand what the authors of this volume claim. It also makes me chuckle at the critics who consider this book nothing more than a right wing diatribe: you disagree with my leftist doctrine, you must, therefore, be a hyper-conservative activist. Touche. The book is well-structured, starts with some examples of the betrayal to which they refer at their own campus, the U. of Pennsylvania. (Some of the examples they give throughout the text are no less than comical. So, while the authors are not satirists, some of what they say does have an inadvertent tone of comedy). They then offer a history of what they describe, much of it starting with Herbert Marcuse, that flag waver of 1960s radicalism. They offer one example after another, in some of the ostensibly finest institutions in the country, of codes that should make any liberal blush. The book even ends with changes for the better that have taken place at their own university. So there is continuity, and not just negativity. The authors also suggest reasons for this behavior on the part of college administrations, among them careerism and, perhaps above all, spinelessness. The irony is, of course, that those who considered themselves "rights" activists in the 1960s later became the standard bearers for these counter-rights. They declare to various student groups that you ARE victims and that you MUST recognize that or you're not up to our mighty moral standards The book does focus on the university. That has its value primarily in that such an institution is where many a young mind is developed. I wish, frankly, that it had also covered some of where the biases by which the universities may exemplify the oppression practiced by other elements of the bureaucracies, e.g., civil rights offices--of one of which I am also a veteran--which assume a respondent to be guilty of discrimination until proven innocent. But I suppose that has been written of in other volumes. Oh, and the influence of the persons who've set and enforced the anti-libertarian standards of many a university has also been critically appraised in such volumes as "Higher Superstition" and "Fashionable Nonsense" and others available from Amazon.com. Anyway, while I'm not sure of the political leaning of the authors, they seem to be fairly conservative. That I regret, not for their sakes but for the fact that it is often conservatives who are more inclined to civil liberties than the lefties who claim to be egalitarian. And it pushes the door further open to criticism of what good may have been accomplished during the infamous 1960s. The only fault I found with the text that it was almost too long. Perhaps that's my weakness, that I'm not exactly a speed reader. But overall I think this should be read by college faculty and administrators who are concerned where we are going with ideological political correctness. It may also ward off legal suits like those described in some detail in the book.
Rating:
Summary: Politically Correct, Morally Ugly.
Review: In the campuses of the institutions of American higher education, from the Ivy League to community colleges, the First Amendment and had given way to political correctness. The spirit of liberty - freedom of expression and freedom of academic inquiry, was under senseless assault. Students and faculties alike were silenced by speech codes, intimidated and persecuted by secret kangaroo judicial apparatus controlled by radical liberals, save a few brave souls such as Kors and Silverglate. Kors and Silverglate barely lifted a rock so huge by a crack as to allow us to see some of the ugliness underneath. The university administrators proclaimed their allegiance to academic freedom, but in the same breath denounced "offensive" expressions. What an irony! And nothing is offensive when it is directed against conservative values; everything is offensive when one is not in concert with the race and gender radicals. The blatant double standard insults one's intelligence. The casualties have been heavy. Countless students and faculty members succumbed to this onslaught. Many were silenced or coerced to admit to false charges. Some suffer much greater losses such as expulsion (students) and termination (faculty), without any semblance of due process. Why do most universities keep their disciplinary proceedings secret? Anything that has to be kept secret is highly suspect. And, of course, when one is brave and resourceful enough to take the matter to a court of law, the administrators run for cover. This book is very well researched and equally well written. (I love historians, they are such good prose writers.) I myself have been considerably educated by it on the subject of the interpretation of the First and the Fourteenth Amendment, and the Court's ginger handling of academic freedom. As the author said "Sunlight is the best disinfectant." This book is sunlight. Great work.
Rating:
Summary: Free Speech for All!
Review: The Shadow University by Kors and Silverglate presents a meticulously documented and chilling account of the infringements on free speech, free association, free thought, and due process forced onto students and politically incorrect faculty at some of this country's most prestigious colleges and universities. It also shows how shallow are the efforts of campuses to showcase "diversity" of culture when the real role of a college or university should be to present and protect diversity of ideas. The book documents how the lack of basic civil rights on campuses is generally unknown outside of the closed academic society and how courts have consistently ruled against the colleges and universities on basic constitutional grounds when their policies, such as speech codes, have been challenged. The stories recounted in the book show the duplicity and hypocrisy of many college administrators and some faculty. Fortunately, common sense and a faith in basic rights of free speech and due process can correct the problem, but only if enough people recognize the threat to freedom on campus. This book should be required reading for all college administrators, trustees, and faculty, as well as being highly recommended for all students and parents. We owe Kors & Silvergate (and groups such as the ACLU) a great debt of gratitude for their efforts to restore and preserve freedom on campus.
Rating:
Summary: I just read it!
Review: The Shadow University shows just how bad racist and sexist censorship and mind control has become on American university campuses. Cleverly disguised as "harassment policy" virtually every college and university in the US not categorically prohibits free speech, free ideas, or free thinking whenever it disagrees with the officially sanctioned racism and sexism. The book has many cited examples and details pervasive bigotry on campus. It's time that honest citizens did something about it. The author is an officer of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, Inc. (FIRE) They are currently suing several universities and winning lawsuits where judges are required to explain to university paid bigots (college presidents) the facts of constitutional law. It is well worth the read, and ought to be required reading for every college student, employee, and regent.
Rating:
Summary: An expose' of racism and sexism on campus.
Review: The Shadow University shows just how bad racist and sexist censorship and mind control has become on American university campuses. Cleverly disguised as "harassment policy" virtually every college and university in the US not categorically prohibits free speech, free ideas, or free thinking whenever it disagrees with the officially sanctioned racism and sexism. The book has many cited examples and details pervasive bigotry on campus. It's time that honest citizens did something about it. The author is an officer of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, Inc. (FIRE) They are currently suing several universities and winning lawsuits where judges are required to explain to university paid bigots (college presidents) the facts of constitutional law. It is well worth the read, and ought to be required reading for every college student, employee, and regent.
Rating: 
Summary: Read this book. But...
Review: Unexpected turns and shocking realizations of what a fundamentalist sector of America has implemented makes this book read like a chilling spy novel. The reader hesitates to turn each page, fearful but driven to see just what will happen next. The roots of modern, institutionalized hypocrisy hang in a harsh light from the very beginning of chapter one and the Water Buffalo Affair at the University Of Pennsylvania. Quotes of university administrators and their staggering leaps in the illogical, cloaked in language that could only be from another world peppers speech, writings and vindictive suppression created by those directing The New Left and their movements at Harvard, Stanford, Michigan. Old meanings of classical liberal education have been evacuated by totalitarian regimes revealed as virtually controlling every university in America and determined to crush equal rights in favor of protecting their own dogma like some fanatic religion. The New Left makes no bones about their despotic intent as chapter four and Marcuse's Revenge shows. As a staff member of a Big Ten university I witnessed the same duplicity, double standards and mental acrobatics committed to protect new orthodoxies as those exposed in this book - and observed nearly every day. Such lack of principle and lifting the blindfold of Lady Justice is quite acceptable as it perpetually satisfies a vendetta. Apparently the Fundamentalist Left is as willing to commit their sins as any adulterous Jimmy Swaggart or fraudulent Jim and Tammy Fae Baker on the Right because their own personal ends justify any means. And this from those very people who embraced free speech and other Constitutional guarantees, until they had the power to discard them, suppressing other views, declaring the Constitution void. Precisely the type of wicked preferential treatment afforded to the Klan in ugly years past is now embraced by those who protested such ignorance and vulgarity. Read this book. But be prepared to see obfuscating language of new movements for the violent assaults they are.
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