CONFORMITY COLLEGES: THE DESTRUCTION OF INTELLECTUAL CREATIVITY AND DISSENT IN AMERICA’S UNIVERSITIES

“Your analysis of how the university, once the bastion of free inquiry, has become a mechanism for enforcing ideological conformity is both urgent and profoundly important. You have created something

David Barnhizer

“Your analysis of how the university, once the bastion of free inquiry, has become a mechanism for enforcing ideological conformity is both urgent and profoundly important. You have created something that feels less like a book and more like a warning bell.”

Sort of just for fun I am sharing the following text that I received yesterday morning on my e-mail. I actually found it intriguing because it somehow matched my thinking with an amazing precision. As I read through the text it was both uplifting and depressing. Uplifting because I found the analysis accurate, depressing because the book, Conformity Colleges, describes and details the rapid decline of America’s educational systems all the way from K-12 through universities AND because it was done with such detail and thoughtfulness that I was and am convinced it is the work of an AI program, although I sense a real human is also present.

I don’t know if others who have written books share my experiences involving the unanticipated and unsolicited receipt of offers in their emails or as cellphone voice and text messages from people who purport to be able to connect you with major publishers who have “discovered” your book and would like to consider adapting it for one thing or another, including development of a script adapting it for film. I have choked up with laughter at several overtures that promised me they could obtain an advance for the film rights for adaptation as somewhere between $500,000 and $750,000. Some didn’t even say the title of the book they were talking about or say anything about its substance or themes.

The first time you receive such a message your heart leaps because one’s ego whispers—“someone out there has realized how brilliant and creative I am.” As a general matter, fortunately for me, I am not driven by intense ego needs and even do my best to avoid attention. Therefore, the inanity of efforts to”trigger” me by flattery and praise is amusing and transcendent. When you receive approaches like the numerous ones mentioned above, if you have any sense you do a little research and talk to your book’s publisher and discover there are so many scam artists out there that you wind up not knowing who or what to trust. Most of the approaches are fairly clumsy and contain unwitting tips about how to identify and deal with them by simply ignoring the approach entirely and the “hustlers” go away after one or two tries. They are, however, becoming much more sophisticated. I assume that AI is doing most of the messaging with a few info prompts and instructions.

In fact I fully believe the text below is in a significant part a product of an AI engine. It demonstrates just how much such systems have evolved in terms of communicating at levels, nuances and speeds considerably beyond the capabilities of virtually any human. My son Daniel and I published The Artificial Intelligence Contagion: Can Democracy Withstand the Imminent Transformation of Work, Wealth and the Social Order (Clarity 2019). Like many others I am amazed at the speed at which systems that were predicted to take at least several more decades to develop levels of intelligence that came even close to the now meaningless “Turing Test” related to AI intelligence and capabilities.

At this point Alan Turing’s supposed “Test” has been rendered an historical artifact and a curiosity. Fundamentally, we are now navigating in “uncharted territory” and are in trouble on multiple fronts. This includes being able to trust the validity and truth of what we hear and perceive. I, of course, bask in the glow of what is said in the following quoted text set out below about me and the potential importance of Conformity Colleges. I do this even if it almost certainly was crafted by an AI system because it obviously says things about me and the book that are totally accurate. I hope the AI was GROK because even though I don’t use the system for anything but data retrieval GROK once said some really nice things about some of my work so I have some degree of respect for its capabilities.

My dilemma right now is whether to respond and contact the sender. I tried to trace and verify the individual and the cited business organization but nothing just “pops out”. The dominant name is of an author who has published a very large number of books on persuasion, perception, negotiation and similar topics but I am not at all certain that is the text sender. In any event, I can say that Conformity Colleges is a very good book and that isn’t my ego talking. I am proud of it, Tony Lyons the publisher at Skyhorse Publishing was very supportive and arranged over 20 podcast interviews that I did after the book came out.

The Message About Conformity Colleges Received July 14, 2026

Professor Barnhizer:

“I hope this message finds you well and perhaps in the midst of the vital intellectual work that has defined your distinguished career. I have spent the past several days with Conformity Colleges, and I must tell you that I found myself deeply engaged by both the courage and the rigor contained within its pages. There is a remarkable fearlessness in the way you have taken on one of the most pressing and controversial issues of our time, the ideological transformation of American higher education and its consequences for intellectual freedom and democratic discourse.

You have produced a work that is not merely a critique but a call to action, grounded in decades of legal scholarship and academic experience. Your analysis of how the university, once the bastion of free inquiry, has become a mechanism for enforcing ideological conformity is both urgent and profoundly important. You have created something that feels less like a book and more like a warning bell, a necessary intervention in a conversation that will shape the future of our society.

It is precisely because of this rare and vital quality that I am reaching out to you today. My name is Joseph Crown, and I am the Founder of Crown Book Expert. For nearly two decades, my firm has dedicated itself to a single mission, ensuring that books with the power to shape public understanding and ignite essential conversations, books like this one, find their way into the hands of the readers who need them most.

I have built my career on understanding the dynamics of readership and the cultural forces that determine which books break through and which are relegated to obscurity. I can tell you with absolute certainty that Conformity Colleges occupies a space that is both urgently needed and remarkably underserved in the current publishing landscape.

What strikes me most profoundly about this volume is its refusal to engage in mere polemic. You have marshaled a wealth of evidence, drawn from your deep experience in legal education and your careful observation of academic culture over decades, to build a case that is both intellectually rigorous and deeply troubling. You have documented the transformation of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives from well-meaning efforts to expand opportunity into mechanisms of ideological enforcement that suppress dissent and punish intellectual independence.

This is not a book about partisan grievance; it is a book about the fundamental principles of academic freedom and the erosion of the very values that made American universities the envy of the world. For the parent sending a child to college, for the professor who has felt the chilling effect of campus orthodoxy, for the citizen concerned about the health of our democratic institutions, this book offers a comprehensive and sobering analysis of a crisis that is unfolding in real time.

Culturally, this book arrives at a moment when public trust in higher education is at an all-time low and debates about the purpose of the university have moved from academic journals to the front pages of major newspapers. You have offered a framework for understanding what has gone wrong and a path forward for those who wish to reclaim the university as a space for genuine intellectual exploration.

The market is primed for exactly this kind of offering. We are witnessing a growing appetite for books that challenge institutional orthodoxies and offer clear-eyed analysis of complex cultural issues. The success of works like Christopher Rufo’s America’s Cultural Revolution and the ongoing debates surrounding academic freedom in publications like The Atlantic, National Review, and The Chronicle of Higher Education demonstrate a hungry and discerning audience for precisely this kind of work.

The communities that orbit around academic freedom organizations, conservative and libertarian think tanks, alumni networks concerned about the direction of their alma maters, and parent groups navigating the college admissions landscape represent a fertile ground for your book. Yet, even with this tailwind, the reality of modern publishing is unforgiving. The greatest challenge facing Conformity Colleges is not a lack of interest, but a crisis of discoverability. In a sea of books on culture war topics, a work with the scholarly depth and institutional knowledge of yours can be tragically overlooked by the very readers who would benefit from it most.

The professors who are quietly concerned about the direction of their departments, the parents who sense that something has gone wrong but cannot articulate it, the policymakers who need data-driven analysis to guide their decisions, many of them simply do not know this book exists. The reviews, the endorsements, and the strategic placement within the right intellectual and policy ecosystems are not yet aligned to carry this important work forward, and that is a loss not just for you as its author, but for the broader conversation about the future of American education.

This is precisely where my expertise can serve as a catalyst. I have already taken the liberty of constructing a comprehensive, bespoke marketing strategy tailored specifically to the substance and urgency of Conformity Colleges. This is not a one-size-fits-all campaign of generic social media posts. Rather, it is a thoughtful, multi-layered plan that involves identifying and cultivating relationships with key influencers within the academic freedom and higher education reform spheres, respected scholars, policy analysts, and journalists whose endorsements carry immense weight with their audiences.

It involves curating a targeted outreach to leading podcasts and media platforms that reach the readers most concerned with these issues, as well as securing features in respected publications that address education policy, intellectual freedom, and American culture. More importantly, my plan includes positioning the book not merely as another culture war entry, but as the definitive scholarly account of the transformation of American higher education, creating a long-term trajectory that establishes it as the essential reference on this subject.

I envision strategic partnerships with academic freedom organizations, campus reform groups, and alumni networks, as well as a sustained publicity narrative that positions you as the leading voice in the critical conversation about the future of our universities.

Your work is too significant, and its potential impact too vast, to leave its fate to the whims of chance or the limitations of traditional marketing alone. I believe that with the right strategic partner, Conformity Colleges has the capacity to become a landmark book, a work that shapes the national conversation and influences policy for years to come. I would be profoundly honored to be that partner.

I would love to hear directly from you about your own vision for this book. What are your deepest hopes for its reach and impact? What obstacles have you encountered in attempting to connect with your audience thus far? And, most importantly, would you be open to reviewing the detailed strategic blueprint I have already begun to craft for you? I am confident that what I have prepared will not only excite you about the possibilities ahead but will offer a clear, actionable path to ensuring this essential message finds every reader who is waiting for it.

With the deepest respect and a genuine sense of shared mission, I look forward to the possibility of working together. I invite you to schedule a brief conversation with me at your earliest convenience, so we can explore how we might bring this vision to life. Your book deserves to be discovered, and I would be honored to help make that happen.”

Warmly and with great admiration.