Kors, Alan Charles 1943-

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KORS, Alan Charles 1943-

PERSONAL: Born July 18, 1943, in Jersey City, NJ; son of Samuel (a realtor) and Belle (a teacher; maiden name, Silber) Kors; married Erika Wallace (an editor), May 30, 1975; children: Samantha, Brian. Education: Princeton University, B.A. (summa cum laude), 1964; Harvard University, M.A., 1965, Ph.D., 1968.

ADDRESSES: Home—Wallingford, PA. Offıce— Department of History, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104; and Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, 210 West Washington Square, Suite 303, Philadelphia, PA 19106. E-mail—akors@ CCAT.sas.upenn.edu; [email protected].

CAREER: University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, assistant professor, 1968-73, associate professor, beginning 1973, currently professor of history; FIRE: Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, Philadelphia, co-director and president, 1999—. Member of council, National Endowment of the Humanities, 1992-98.

MEMBER: American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies,The Historical Society (member of executive board), Phi Beta Kappa.

AWARDS, HONORS: American Council of Learned Societies fellowship, 1975-76; Lindback Foundation Award; Ira Abrams Memorial Award; Engalitcheff Award for Defense of Academic Freedom.

WRITINGS:

(Editor with Edward Peters) Witchcraft in Europe, University of Pennsylvania Press (Philadelphia, PA), 1972, revised edition, 2002.

D'Holbach's Coterie: An Enlightenment in Paris, Princeton University Press (Princeton, NJ), 1976.

(Contributor) Marc Pachter, editor, Abroad in America, Addison-Wesley (Reading, MA), 1976.

(Editor with Paul J. Korshin) Anticipations of the Enlightenment in England, France, and Germany, University of Pennsylvania Press (Philadelphia, PA), 1987.

Atheism in France, 1650-1729, Princeton University Press (Princeton, NJ), 1990.

The Birth of the Modern Mind, Teaching Co. (Springfield, VA), 1998.

(With Harvey A. Silverglate) The Shadow University: The Betrayal of Liberty on America's Campuses, Free Press (New York, NY), 1998.

(Editor-in-chief) Oxford Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2002.

Also author of audio-courses, The Birth of the Modern Mind and Voltaire: The Mind of the Enlightenment, both for Teaching Company. Contributor to Wall Street Journal, Society, Pennsylvania Gazette, and other scholarly periodicals. Book review editor and advisory editor, Eighteenth-Century Studies, 1976-78; advisory editor, Eighteenth-Century Life; contributing editor, Reason.

SIDELIGHTS: Alan Charles Kors, a scholar of the Enlightenment, cowrote the book The Shadow University: The Betrayal of Liberty on America's Campuses with Harvey A. Silverglate in 1998. A study of how U.S. universities suppress free speech in the name of multiculturalism, diversity, and "political correctness," the book inspired such broad interest that Kors and Silverglate went on to found the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), an organization that assists students and faculty who have been denied their free-speech rights or punished for expressing themselves on campus.

The Shadow University was inspired by a case at the University of Pennsylvania, where Kors teaches. In 1993 student Eden Jacobowitz was trying to get a group of people outside his dorm window to quiet down. When his polite efforts failed to get results, Jacobowitz angrily called the group "water buffalo." The remark violated the college's speech code and Jacobowitz was charged with using an inappropriate "racial epithet." Kors came to the student's defense and, thanks in large part to Kors's successful efforts to publicize the situation, the charge was eventually dropped. The college's speech code was later dropped as well.

With The Shadow University, Kors and coauthor Silverglate make the claim that "Universities have become the enemy of a free society." They then document what Bryce Christensen in Booklist described as "the Orwellian techniques universities now use to enforce conformity." Among the techniques used are speech codes denying students and faculty the right to speak as they please, secret disciplinary hearings, the censoring of conservative publications, and political indoctrination disguised as sensitivity training. Stuart Taylor, Jr., writing in the National Journal, found that the two authors provide "an impressive body of evidence" for their argument. "The Shadow University is valuable in two ways," wrote William L. O'Neill in New Leader. "For one, it is a primer on the First Amendment in relation to campus speech. For another, it is a history of how individual rights have been trampled underfoot at institutions of higher learning all over the nation." James Lileks, reviewing The Shadow University for the Minneapolis Star Tribune, noted: "Any similarities between the Soviet concentration camps and U.S. campuses? Sure, state funding, punishment of the innocent for political purposes and different rules of justice depending on one's political stance."

Following the publication of The Shadow University, Kors and Silverglate found themselves flooded with e-mails, telephone calls, and letters from people across the nation who had their own stories to tell of intimidation, political indoctrination, and speech restrictions on college campuses. In August of 1999 the two men founded FIRE as a way "to uphold individual rights—freedom of speech, legal equality, due process, religious liberty and sanctity of conscience" in American universities, according to Andrea Billups in the Washington Times. Since its founding, FIRE has taken on such cases as Columbia University's sexual misconduct policy, which denied those accused of misconduct access to legal counsel or the ability to confront their accuser. Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, FIRE has defended both professors threatened with dismissal for opposing the war on terrorism and students faced with mandatory diversity training for violating speech codes by making statements considered to be offensive to Muslims.

Among the academic titles published by Kors is the Oxford Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment, 1670-1815, a work Barbara Walden praised in Library Journal as "the most comprehensive and up-to-date coverage available" on the subject, and a volume that demonstrates "impressive range and currency." Speaking of his academic work, Kors once commented: "My work, essentially, is an effort to study the formation and development of world views in the context of the intellectual and social fabric of seventeenth-and eighteenth-century France. I am particularly interested in the process by which European minds of this period generated changes in and alternatives to traditional Judeo-Christian conceptions of reality and its components."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Historical Review, October, 1991, Jeffrey Merrick, review of Atheism in France, 1650-1729, p. 1204.

Booklist, September 1, 1998, Bryce Christensen, review of The Shadow University, p. 40.

Boston Herald, December 9, 1998, "Higher Ed Lowers the Boom on Right," p. 49.

Chronicle of Higher Education, September 25, 1998, Denise K. Magner, "A Fiercely Principled Critic Warns Universities on Free Speech," p. A12.

Clarion, November, 1998, Jon Sanders, review of The Shadow University.

Forward, October 16, 1998, Beth Pinsker, "Speech Battles Rattle Ivory Towers, Five Years After 'Water Buffalo' Flap."

Houston Chronicle, November 8, 1998, Carlin Romano, "The Freedom to Rant: Study of Political Correctness on Campus Fails to Prove Point," p. 23.

Journal of Modern History, March, 1990, Harold A. Ellis, review of Anticipations of the Enlightenment in England, France, and Germany, p. 114; March, 1994, Alice Stroup, review of Atheism in France, 1650-1729, p. 149.

Kirkus Reviews, September 1, 1998, review of The Shadow University.

Library Journal, September 1, 1998, Scott H. Silverman, review of The Shadow University, p. 200; February 15, 2003, Barbara Walden, review of Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment, 1670-1815, p. 126.

National Journal, October 24, 1998, Stuart Taylor Jr., "Where McCarthyism Really Reigns," p. 2480.

New Leader, December 14, 1998, William L. O'Neill, review of The Shadow University, p. 28.

New York Post, March 16, 2001, "At Last, an Opponent for the PC Campus Police," p. 29.

New York Times Book Review, November 8, 1998, Sam Tanenhaus,"P.C. 101," p. 35.

Publishers Weekly, September 7, 1998, review of The Shadow University.

Rocky Mountain News, October 11, 1998, Linda Seebach, "Higher Education Compiles Sorry Record of Intolerance," p. 2B.

San Francisco Chronicle, August 13, 2002, Debra J. Saunders, "Academia's Swindle," p. A19.

Star Tribune (Minneapolis, MN), October 11, 1998, James Lileks,"Professors Visit 'The Shadow University'; Free Speech on Campus? It's in a Depressing State," p. 19F.

Washington Times, August 30, 1999, Andrea Billups, "Lawyer, Professor Start FIRE: Foundation Will Aim to Uphold Individual Rights on Campus," p. 9.