Resistance from the Right

Starred review from June 15, 2023
The roots of right-wing politics on 1960s college campuses. In her debut book, historian Shepherd draws on oral histories, archival sources, and interviews with 56 individuals to offer a deep examination of the reactionary movement on college campuses from 1967 to 1970. Students involved in organizations such as the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, Young Americans for Freedom, and others benefited from financial support and mentorship from "anti-New Deal elders" seeking to foment "an astroturf mobilization against a so-called liberal establishment in higher education." Shepherd investigates the many political, evangelical, libertarian, and "sizable and energetic" White supremacist clubs and organizations that reacted against peace and Black Power movements and that rallied in support of the Vietnam War. Some members of those groups became famous political figures, including Newt Gingrich, Bill Barr, Jeff Sessions, Karl Rove, Pat Buchanan, and David Duke. All became powerful leaders in business, law, higher education, and conservative think tanks, where they continued to promote the views that they honed in their college years, driving American politics and culture further to the authoritarian right. The author clearly shows how "the current panic from the Right over student culture; curricula; and faculty hiring, tenure, and promotion is part of a longer historical pattern." Although she reveals some in-fighting and ideological splits within student groups, their demographic was largely cohesive. In the 1960s, she reports, 95% of college students were White, middle class, and, except in women's colleges, male. They presented themselves as "heteronormative white Christians," proud to call themselves squares, as opposed to their long-haired hippie classmates. The groups disseminated their ideas through magazines and campus media; carefully curated speaker events; and, after campus protest demonstrations in 1968, calls for increased punishments for leftist student activists. Shepherd presents compelling evidence for the ways that these groups, although a minority on campus, have exerted long-lasting influence. A thoroughly researched, revelatory political history with abundant relevance for today.

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