In 2009, Harvey A. Silverglate, a prominent criminal defense and civil liberties lawyer, published his landmark critique of the federal criminal justice system, Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent. In 2014, Sidney Powell, a former federal prosecutor in three districts under nine United States Attorneys from both political parties and who has been lead counsel in 500 federal appeals, published her landmark indictment of the system, Licensed To Lie: Exposing Corruption in the Department of Justice, after she witnessed appalling abuses by prosecutors--more than a decade after she entered private practice. Now these two leading authorities have combined their knowledge, experiences, and talents to produce a much-needed and long-awaited blueprint for reforming the way business is conducted within the Department of Justice and in the federal criminal courts. Both Powell and Silverglate decided to join forces to write this essential and long-awaited book in order to answer the questions and the challenges that each of them has faced over the past several years: "OK," they've been told. "We understand your criticisms. Now how about telling us what has to be done to restore justice to federal criminal justice." This collaboration is their response.
Universities once believed themselves to be sacred enclaves, where students and professors could debate the issues of the day and arrive at a better understanding of the human condition. Today, sadly, this ideal of the university is being quietly betrayed from within. Universities still set themselves apart from American society, but now they do so by enforcing their own politically correct worldview through censorship, double standards and a judicial system without due process. Faculty and students who threaten the prevailing norms may be forced to undergo "thought reform."In a surreptitious about-face, universities have become the enemy of a free society, and the time has come to hold these institutions to account.The Shadow University is a stinging indictment of the covert system of justice on college campuses, exposing the widespread reliance of n kangaroo courts and arbitrary punishment to coerce students and faculty into conformity. Alan Charles Kors and Harvey A. Silverglate, staunch civil libertarians and active defenders of free inquiry on campus, lay bare the totalitarian mindset that undergirds speech codes, conduct codes, and "campus life" bureaucracies, through which a cadre of deans and counselors indoctrinate students and faculty in an ideology that favors group rights over individual rights, sacrificing free speech and academic freedom to spare the sensitivities of currently favored groups.From Maine to California, at public and private universities alike, liberty and fairness are the first casualties as teachers and students find themselves in the dock, presumed guilty until proven innocent and often forbidden to cross-examine their accusers. Kors and Silverglate introduce us to many of those who have firsthand experience of The Shadow University, including:The student at the center of the 1993 "Water Buffalo" case at the University of Pennsylvania who was brought up on charges of racial harassment after calling a group of rowdy students "water buffalo" -- even though the terms has no racial connotations.The Catholic residence adviser who was fired for refusing, on the grounds of religious conscience, to wear a symbol of lesbian and gay causesThe professor who was investigated for sexual harassment when he disagreed with campus feminists about curriculum issuesThe student who was punished for laughing at a statement deemed offensive to others and who was ordered to undergo "sensitivity training" as a result.The Shadow University unmasks a chilling reality for parent who entrust their sons and daughters to the authority of such institutions, for thinking people who recognize that vigorous debate is the only sure path to truth, and for all Americans who realize that when even one citizen is deprived of liberty, we are all diminished.
