When David Horowitz took the podium in Gates Auditorium Oct. 1 in front of students and members of the University of Denver community, there was a feeling of salutation and reception from members of the audience – not of hostility and protest.

The Academic Bill of Rights states that academic freedom and intellectual diversity are values indispensable to the American university.

The bill regards the pursuit of truth, the discovery of new knowledge, the study and reasoned criticism of intellectual and cultural traditions, the teaching and general development of students, and the transmission at large as the mission of the university.

“This is a friendlier institution than I am used to,” said Horowitz of the DU campus community.

Being one of few well-known conservative speakers, many several college campuses have shunned his arrival.

“It’s facism,” Horowitz said of colleges that ban speakers who represents a more conservative political view.

“That’s what the Academic Bill of Rights is about,” he said. Horowitz developed the Academic Bill of Rights to state the mission of a university and explain academic freedom.

He stressed that college campuses, as well as professors and administrations, are too liberal and dismiss conservative idealisms, making the minority of Republicans on campus feel uncomfortable and unwelcome.

Horowitz explained that being a conservative is like being an alien in the academic universe, because there appears to be very few of them.

“We cannot trust our professors. That’s the problem. That’s what I want to change,” Horowitz said.

Students should be able to trust their professors for help, counsel and guidance, but the problem is, they can’t.

Higher education, he explained, needs to expose students to diverse ideas and members of the campus community need to be civil and friendly to everyone with a different perspective.

Horowitz said that the bill is a campaign to bring out better angels and return educational systems to their mission.