University Presses Bind Leftist Bias into Nearly Every Book They Print

Laments about the politicization of higher education and the ill effects of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) policies rarely address the roles that university presses play in these processes, but they should. While the presses publish quality scholarship on many subjects, most university presses are committed to contemporary liberal and radical political causes, reflecting the views of their universities, and rarely, at best, publish ideologically incorrect messages. These presses ostensibly publish objective scholarship ensured by peer-review processes, but have become chronic purveyors of Marxian notions of many sorts, thereby gradually altering accepted scholarly “knowledge” and enabling sympathetic librarians to revise library holdings in ideologically-informed ways by stocking them with the ostensibly credible output of university presses. Efforts to depoliticize universities by rooting out anti-Semitism and DEI polices, therefore, should also address the editorial decision-making processes of university presses, which have federal tax-exempt status as parts of not-for-profit universities.

The political activism of the presses in publishing books about, and by, members of ideologically privileged, demographically-defined identity groups is reflected in the views of the Association of University Presses (AUPresses), a trade association of 164 presses, most of which are American university presses. AUPresses extols an academic-like “equity and inclusion” statement and reaffirmed the principles of the Coalition for Diversity and Inclusion in Scholarly Communications (C4DISC) at its spring 2025 meeting. Among the Association’s standing committees is the Equity, Justice, Inclusion, & Belonging Committee. AUPresses proclaimed on April 2, 2025, in response to President Trump’s anti-DEI policies:

The Association of University Presses (AUPresses) is deeply alarmed by the current flood of US federal government policy upheavals, and the likely effects on individuals, institutions, and the scholarly record.

Motivated by our core values of equity and inclusion, intellectual freedom, integrity, and stewardship, we resolve to speak clearly, on behalf of our global association of mission-driven publishers and in concert with our peers in the wide scholarly community, about the very real threats to knowledge and scholarship that these unprecedented and potentially illegal/extra-legal mandates present.

These words resonate with the views of “better” research universities, within which most AUPresses members reside. Presses closely adhere to the political leanings of their parent university administrators. Harvard University Press, for example, asserts:

Inspired by the university of which we are a part, we strive to create a diverse and inclusive institutional culture.

These biases mean that writers with non-leftist views on controversial political issues are largely banished from university presses and instead are published by presses that cannot claim the scholarly cachet of university presses. For example, Portland State University Professor Bruce Gilley’s The Case for Colonialism, which challenges the neo-Marxian view that colonialism was wholly evil, was published in 2023 by World Encounter Institute/New English Review Press. And Drexel University Professor Stanley K. Ridgley’s Brutal Minds, which assesses mind-altering indoctrination processes at many American universities, was published in 2023 by Humanix Books.

[RELATED: Libraries: The Quiet DEI Indoctrinators]

My personal experiences illustrate some of the attitudes of university presses that lead to biased publications.

In 2021, before I was “canceled” as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University for assessing in a peer-reviewed academic journal the merits of DEI-related claims by senior U.S. intelligence officers, I approached Don Jacobs of Georgetown University Press (GUP), an AUPresses member, with whom I had interacted constructively on a 2019 book, and asked him if GUP would be interested in a manuscript that assessed the causes of politicization of U.S. intelligence—and their consequences. I sent him another peer-reviewed academic article that contains points I wanted to expand upon in a scholarly book, including the fact that defense of DEI policies against a possible Trump threat was a major reason why CIA director John Brennan in 2016 urged CIA employees to be political active in contravention of the longstanding CIA norm of apolitical public service. Don responded that my argument was incompatible with the views of Georgetown University, and consequently of GUP, and that GUP, therefore, would not even consider a proposal on this subject. GUP then displayed a Black Lives Matter emblem on the top right corner of its website, which has since been removed.

After Don’s message, I approached the University Press of Kansas, another AUPresses member that also publishes a credible intelligence studies series. This time, my proposal was accepted, and both peer reviewers recommended publication. The second reviewer to report also told editor-in-chief Joyce Harrison that parts of the book might be controversial. At that point, she reversed her interest in my manuscript, telling me she feared that the trustees of the University of Kansas system would punish the press if it published such ideologically offensive material. So I found an agent who looked for a trade publisher and eventually published my book with Armin Lear Press, which is based in Colorado and Virginia. Armin Lear did not edit my substantive analytic points in any way. Armin Lear also published DEI Exposed, another of Stan Ridgley’s books.

There are lessons here for traditionally minded educators and authors. It is important to publish reputable, scholarly books that are not leftist in ideological orientation, but only a few publishers do so. Encounter Books, for example, performs well in this regard. But it would help educational institutions to do so, too. A University of Austin Press that published extensively on subjects ranging as broadly as its curriculum would be great.

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Image: “Cambridge University Press” by Sandy B on Wikimedia Commons