Renowned political analyst Dinesh D'Souza to speak

Hoover Institute Fellow and best-selling author Dinesh D’Souza, known for his challenges to the politically liberal academic establishment, speaks at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 19, in the Benjamin Mays Center, 95 Russell St.

A book signing and reception will follow. The event is free and open to the public.

D’Souza has argued that, more than any other country, America allows people the chance to “write the script to their own lives.” Born and raised outside Bombay, India, as an American immigrant D’Souza realizes the advantages of individual freedom in U.S. culture. This ideal is explicitly expressed in his book What’s So Great About America (Regnery Publishing, 2002), which examines various critiques of America, including the “Islamic critique” and the “multicultural critique.” It makes the case for an intelligent patriotism, based on an understanding of what makes America unique in the world.

Ben Stein, host of television’s Win Ben Stein’s Money, described the book as “convincing, eye-opening and ultimately uplifting. Buy it, and consider yourself lucky.”

“I’m so excited about the opportunity to host Dinesh D’Souza at Bates,” said first-year student Oliver Wolf of Pittsburgh, Pa., vice president of the Bates College Republicans and a major organizer of the event.

“This event is very much an effort for Bates to respect a different form of diversity — diversity of political thought,” says Wolf. “I see no better person in this effort for Bates than D’Souza, who is such a leading and articulate conservative speaker on campuses across the country.” As a Young America’s Foundation speaker, D’Souza has spoken at top universities and colleges across the country including Chicago, Colby, Columbia, Dartmouth, Duke and Stanford.

D’Souza graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Dartmouth College in 1983 and served as senior domestic policy analyst at the White House during the Reagan Administration, from 1987 to 1988. His articles on culture and politics have appeared in Vanity Fair, Forbes, Harper’s, The Weekly Standard, The Wall Street Journal, Atlantic Monthly, The Washington Post and The New York Times. He has appeared on such television programs as This Week With David Brinkley, Nightline, Crossfire, Firing Line, Good Morning America and Politically Incorrect.

D’Souza wrote The New York Times best seller Illiberal Education (1991), described by The Wall Street Journal as “a brisk, hard-hitting journalistic tour through the political land mines embedded these days in higher education.” He is also the author of The End of Racism (1995), Ronald Reagan: How an Ordinary Man Became an Extraordinary Leader (1997), The Virtue of Prosperity: Finding Values in an Age of Techno Affluence (2000) and Letters to a Young Conservative (2002).

Introducing D’Souza at the lecture will be professor emeritus of political science Douglas Hodgkin. A Lewiston native, Hodgkin is active in the Republican Party and has held party positions at the local, regional and national levels. A member of the Lewiston, Androscoggin and 2nd District Republican committees, Hodgkin has chaired the Lewiston Caucus and served on the 2002 Maine state platform committee.

D’Souza’s Bates appearance is sponsored by the Bates College Republicans and co-sponsored by the Muskie Lecture Series and the offices of the president and the deans of students and faculty. Co-sponsors include the departments of political science, history, anthropology, sociology and the following organizations: Young America’s Foundation, the Bates Representative Assembly, Bates Libertarians and the Bates Economics Society.