Conservative author David Horowitz took the stage in front of more than 300 people last night in HUB Alumni Hall to discuss academic freedom and the dangers that ensue when that freedom is infringed.

Horowitz said it is the professor's responsibility to provide his or her students with all sides of every issue in order to challenge them and to provide them with the highest level of understanding.

"You can't get a good education if they're only telling you half the story," he said.

He said the main objective of his campaign is to have Penn State President Graham Spanier enforce the regulations on academic freedom stated in the faculty handbook.

"I believe that many of you are getting indoctrinated at this university," he said. "Your professors are teaching you what to think, not how to think."

Horowitz added that courses in black studies and women studies have no place in academic institutions because they are based on ideological principles.

He said conservative professors are a vanishing breed in academia and that liberal students are the ones being short-changed because their beliefs are not being challenged.

"You can find a conservative professor as easily as you can find a unicorn in the field out there," he said.

Horowitz added it was a violation of academic freedom that Spanier would "attack" the Penn State College Republicans over the "Catch an Illegal Immigrant Game" it proposed, and said he feels Spanier and the Black Caucus owe the group an apology.

In a question and answer session after his speech, Horowitz said many students in the room were not only ignorant, but also proud of their ignorance because of their repetitive defense of sociology professor Sam Richard's teachings and their inability to engage in his argument. Horowitz openly accused Richards of bringing his ideology into the classroom in his book, The Professors: 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America.

"This is a demonstration of what brainwashing will do," he said.

When one student rebutted his claim that Fahrenheit 9/11 was shown in a Penn State biology class, Horowitz said, "You are obviously deaf and brain-dead."

Richard Pastena, a member of College Republicans, said he fully agreed with Horowitz's claims.

"If you're not taught both sides of an issue, you're being taught ideology," he said.

Preceding Horowitz's speech was a press conference held by the Penn State College Democrats. Many of the nearly 50 attendants who gathered on the steps of Pattee Library donned shirts that said, "Horowitz: We can think for ourselves. We don't need your outside agenda."

Richards spoke at the press conference, stating that his role as a teacher has always been to encourage his students to explore other viewpoints and then come to their own conclusions.

"In my 20 years of teaching, I have learned that students are not empty vessels waiting to be filled with my ideas," Richards said. "They are not impressionable victims that many try to convince us of."

Greg Weiss (junior-biochemistry), who attended the press conference, believes that Horowitz does not have a firm grasp on the issues that he is discussing.

"I believe there is a lot of misframing that is not fair for any intelligent debate," Weiss said.

Kyle Metzgar, former Undergraduate Student Government (USG) governmental relations chair, said Penn State already enforces the principles of academic freedom and it does not need help from Horowitz.

"Horowitz is doing us a grave disservice by thinking that we need to have our hands held when presented with divergent viewpoints from our own," he said.