Parting The Ivory Curtain

Mike S. Adams (pictured) is a conservative—not a shocking thing in and of itself, until one realizes that Adams is also a college professor. The two don’t normally go hand in hand. Dr. Adams teaches criminal justice at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Wilmington, where he is surrounded everyday by leftist faculty and liberal ideology. That doesn’t seem to bother Adams one bit.

“I like trouble and controversy,” he said at a recent Accuracy in Academia (AIA) luncheon. “I like being surrounded by bigots. It gives me so much material.”

Recently, Adams, who writes regularly for www.townhall.com and other conservative publications, took that material and turned it into a book, Welcome to the Ivory Tower of Babel: Confessions of a Conservative College Professor. Adams said he decided to write the book in the wake of a right-to-privacy incident in which he was involved.

Days after 9/11, a former student of Adams e-mailed him a letter that both severely criticized President Bush and implied that the United States partially brought the World Trade Center attacks on itself. Adams was upset by the letter and responded in part:

The Constitution protects your speech just as it has protected bigoted, unintelligent, and immature speech for many years. But, remember, when you exercise your rights, you open yourself up to criticism that is protected by the same principles. I sincerely hope that your bad speech serves as a catalyst for better speech by others.

Shortly thereafter, a huge controversy erupted when the student accused Adams of verbally abusing her and demanded access to his e-mail accounts to see who he forwarded her letter to. Adams said he defended his right to write a private e-mail and started a media blitz to stop the university. Eventually, the university checked his e-mail, but the pertinent messages had already been deleted; however, an interesting thing happened as a result of the controversy.

Due to the media coverage, Adams said at the AIA luncheon, University Provost John Cavanaugh stated that Adams could feel free to say anything he wanted. Adams took him at his word and wrote his book, which he said is supposed to be a humorous look at campus life that will help get people interested in what is happening in academia.

The book is filled with examples of the irrational and ridiculous activities of the liberal left. Adams details everything from how a faculty search committee rejected candidates for being “too religious” or “too white male” to how one department at UNC-Wilmington paid a black female assistant professor more money than two tenured white male associate professors in her department who had more experience.

In one chapter, Adams tells how he witnessed a professor begin to put down a lunch tray on a table a minority staff member had just left. The professor then realized the staff member was returning with dessert. The professor apologized and offered to move, but the staff member took another table. Later that day, Adams said, the professor received an e-mail from an African-American social work professor complaining about the racist “takeover” of the staff member’s seat.

Throughout his book, Adams repeatedly explained how to deal with being accused of racist activity. He said one should ask the accuser two questions. First, define racism. Accurately, this should be defined as a “belief that some races are naturally, or innately, superior (or inferior) to others.” Most, Adams said, will not get past this point, but if someone manages to give an accurate definition, ask how it applies to the situation. Unfounded accusations of racism can easily be ended in this manner, Adams said.

One example of the overwhelmingly liberal atmosphere on campus could be seen when Adams wrote about how he wanted to test a university policy that said university property could not be used to support or oppose the candidacy of any person running for elected office. In violation of this policy, Adams put a Clinton/Gore sticker on his office door. He said he left it up for about two years. He then replaced it with a George W. Bush for president sticker. Within a few weeks, Adams said he received reports from two faculty and one staff member that someone was preparing to file a complaint.

In Welcome to the Ivory Tower of Babel, Adams exposes a world dominated by liberal ideology and invites readers to see just how ridiculous liberals can be when held up for public scrutiny. The conservative voice must be heard, and Adams is doing his best to make that voice heard; at the AIA luncheon, he said he is planning on writing a second book, tentatively titled How to Win Friends and Irritate Liberals. It will be a less humorous book, Adams said, that will go beyond just exposing liberal activities to teach people how to fight back and win.

A student at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, Christina Haines is an intern at Accuracy in Media.