A year ago, David Joel Horowitz died on April 29^th.  The obituaries mentioned his 180-degree ideological turn from Communist Party USA member to founder of Students for a Democratic Society to the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign to becoming a co-editor of Ramparts magazine. Then, he turned into a right wing ideologue rejecting Marx, socialism, supporter of Ronald Reagan and publishing in 1986, “Why I am No Longer A Leftist,” in The Village Voice. He also began to view college students as being indoctrinated by the entrenched Left professors. These radical professors, according to him, had created an atmosphere of political terror on campuses across the country. In 2002, Horowitz, with two others, Eli Lehrer and Andrew Jones, published a pamphlet, “Political Bias in the Administrations and Faculties of 32 Elite Colleges and Universities.” Their conclusion was that the ratio of Democrat Leftist professors to Conservative Republican ones was 10 to 1. Two years later in 2006, he published The Professors: the 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America,” (Wash. D.C.: Regnery Publishing).

Among the 101 were four Chicanos: Larry Estrada (ps. 152-55),  Emma Perez (ps. 300-03), yours truly Jose Angel Gutierrez, (ps. 202-5), and Armando Navarro (ps. xxiii, 288-91). Fortunately, besides the label of being  dangerous professors which plagued us for decades, we managed to continue with our academic careers and even received awards such as Emeritus Professor.

After the Horowitz book came out on me and the others, my classes were always full; some had a waiting list. The subject would come up from time to time but never in anyway a slur, defamation, racist remark, or offensive tone from any student; the majority of them were White. It was always a serious intellectual question as to why that had been written about me. I really had no clue as to why Horowitz’s researchers found fault or offense with my academic work. These researchers, John Perazzo and Thomas Ryan, listed in that article all the awards I had received up to that time from Latino Monthly, Hispanic Magazine, Texas Association of Chicanos in Higher Education (TACHE), and the Chicano Hero Award from the National Council of La Raza.(now Unidos US). They did mention the titles of some of my books up to that time, and labeled them “political propaganda”, “example of crude racism,” and questioned how the university had granted me tenure based on these titles. They were referring to “A Gringo Manual on How to Handle Mexicans” and “A Chicano Manual on How to Handle Mexicans.” Both are books about power relations with examples of their application as tactics and strategies by those in power. These books are still published and sold by Houston’s Arte Publico Press and many other book stores, including Amazon and eBay.

The ones who had headaches and nightmares over this diatribe by Horowitz was the University of Texas-Arlington, administration, campus police, and municipal police. They and I received thousands of letters, telephone calls, voicemail messages, faxes, and even written messages left on my windshield wipers menacing harm until I resigned in June 2015. I parked in one of the faculty parking lots so the authors of such written notes knew exactly when and where I had arrived and would leave the campus. After I accepted an invitation by the campus Young Republicans to debate Jared Taylor, known white supremacists on campus,  the threats to my life caused the campus police to daily escort me from the parking lot to my office or classroom and back. During one week, the campus police were so concerned about the threats they stood guard by my classroom door while I gave my lessons. The students felt like I did, not intimidated, but as celebrities. Neither Horowitz, Thomas Ryan nor John Perazzo ever sat in on one of my classes. They relied on hearsay, secondary sources, and their imagination.    .     ,  

In the case of Dr. Armando Navarro, Chair, Ethnic Studies Department, University of California-Riverside,  who passed away on March 25, 2022 at age 80, his article in the Horowitz book is partly due to his publications on me, the Mexican American Youth Organization (MAYO), the Raza Unida Party (RUP) and relations with Cuba and Mexico. The second half of the article describes his travels to Mexico to visit the Zapatista Movement (EZLN); his activities in California opposing Proposition 187, in Arizona to confront the Minutemen; and against the war in Iraq. Dr. Navarro was the head of the National Alliance for Human Rights (NAHR); and, later in 2002 as member of the State Central Committee of the Democratic Revolutionary Socialist Party in Mexico. He also labored for decades with the stigma of Horowitz’s inclusion as being one of the 101 Most Dangerous Professors in America.