Horowitz was born to a Jewish family in Forest Hills. His parents, Phil and Blanche Horowitz, were high school teachers. He taught English and she taught stenography. Horowitz majored in English and received a BA from Columbia University in 1959 and a master's degree in English literature at University of California, Berkeley.

His parents were long-standing members of the Communist Party. Horowitz recounted his estrangement from his parents and gradual shift to the political right in a series of retrospectives, culminating in 1996 in his autobiographical book Radical Son: A Generational Odyssey.

Horowitz co-hosted a 1987 "Second Thoughts Conference" in Washington, D.C., described by Sidney Blumenthal in The Washington Post as his "coming out" as a supporter of the right. According to attendee Alexander Cockburn, at that conference Horowitz recounted that his communist parents had not permitted him or his sister to watch Doris Day and Rock Hudson movies, and instead required them to watch celebratory films about the Soviet Union.

In the late 1960s, Horowitz was in London working for the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation where he studied under Ralph Miliband and Isaac Deutscher. In 1971, Horowitz wrote a biography of Deutscher.

Horowitz then wrote The Free World Colossus: A Critique of American Foreign Policy in the Cold War and, in the early 1970s, became an editor at the New Left magazine, Ramparts.

Horowitz was a supporter of Huey P. Newton, and raised money for the Black Panther Party. He has written that he recommended that the Panther Party hire a bookkeeper, Betty Van Patter, who was then working for Horowitz at Ramparts. In December 1974, she was murdered. While her murder is unsolved, Horowitz alleges that the Panthers were responsible for her death, motivated, he states, by the desire to stop Van Patter from revealing the party's financial corruption. Later, he cited that experience as the catalyst for reassessing his views that took him from the political left to the political right.

In 1992, the Heterodoxy magazine, which Horowitz co-edited, was founded. The magazine focused on exposing excessive political correctness on American college and university campuses.

Horowitz has opposed reparations for slavery as something inherently racist against blacks. He argues that applying labels like "descendents of slaves" to blacks would damage their self-esteem and segregate them from mainstream society. Horowitz purchased, or attempted to purchase, advertising space in school publications in order to publicize his opinion that African Americans are not entitled to reparations for Slavery in the United States. Many of these offers were refused and, at some schools, papers which carried the ads were stolen or destroyed.

While he supported the interventionist foreign policy associated with the Bush Doctrine, Horowitz opposed American intervention in the Kosovo War, arguing that it was unnecessary and harmful to U.S. interests. He has recently been critical of libertarian anti-war views.

In 2004, Horowitz launched Discover the Networks, a conservative watchdog project that monitors funding for, and various ties among, leftists and progressive causes. In his 2004 book, Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left, Horowitz contends that leftists support, intentionally or not, Islamist terrorism, and thus require ongoing scrutiny.

In two books, Horowitz accused Dana L. Cloud, associate professor of communication studies at the University of Texas at Austin, as an “anti-American radical” who “routinely repeats the propaganda of the Saddam regime” and, along with all of the 99 other professors in his book, The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America, Horowitz accuses her of the “explicit introduction of political agendas into the classroom.” (pp. 93, 377)

Cloud replied in Inside Higher Ed that her experience demonstrates that Horowitz does real damage to professors' lives — and that he needs to be viewed as such, not just as a political opponent.

Horowitz's attacks have been significant. People who read the book or his Web site regularly send letters to university officials asking for her to be fired. Personally, she has received — mostly via e-mail — "physical threats, threats of removing my daughter from my custody, threats of sexual assaults, horrible disgusting gendered things," she said. That Horowitz doesn't send these isn't the point, she said. "He builds a climate and culture that emboldens people," and as a result, shouldn't be seen as a defender of academic freedom, but as its enemy.

After discussion, the National Communication Association chose not to grant Horowitz a spot as a panelist at its national conference in 2008, even after he agreed to forego the $7,000 speaking fee he had requested.

Horowitz replied, "The fact that no academic group has had the balls to invite me says a lot about the ability of academic associations to discuss important issues if a political minority wants to censor them." An association official said the decision was based in part on Horowitz's request to be provided with a stipend for $500 to hire a personal bodyguard. Association officials decided that having a bodyguard present "communicates the expectation of confrontation and violence."

The issue of political abuse by universities is currently Horowitz's main focus. He, Eli Lehrer, and Andrew Jones published a pamphlet, "Political Bias in the Administrations and Faculties of 32 Elite Colleges and Universities" (2004), in which they find the ratio of Democrats to Republicans at 32 schools to be more than 10 to 1.

Horowitz's book, The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America (2006), criticizes individual professors for their professorial conduct. Horowitz accuses these professors of engaging in indoctrination rather than a disinterested pursuit of knowledge. Horowitz states that his campaign for academic freedom is ideologically neutral.

Horowitz and others promote his Academic Bill of Rights (ABR), an eight-point guide that seeks to eliminate political bias in university hiring and grading. Horowitz says that bias in universities amounts to indoctrination, and charges that conservatives and particularly Republicans are systematically excluded from faculties, citing statistical studies on faculty party affiliation. Critics of the proposed policy, such as Stanley Fish, have argued that "academic diversity", as Horowitz describes it, is not a legitimate academic value, and that no endorsement of "diversity" can be absolute.

In 2004 a version of the ABR was adopted by the Georgia General Assembly on a 41-5 vote.[1][2]

In Pennsylvania, the House of Representatives created a special legislative committee to investigate the state of academic freedom and whether students who hold unpopular views need more protection. In November 2006 it reported that it couldn’t find evidence of problems with students’ rights.

Horowitz has been married four times. His first wife, Elissa Krauthamer, of Berkeley, California, is the mother of their four children, Jonathan Daniel, Benjamin Horowitz, Anne Pilat, and Sarah Rose Horowitz, who died in March 2008 at age 44 from Turner syndrome-related heart complications. She is the subject of Horowitz's 2009 book, A Cracking of the Heart.

Horowitz's daughter, Sarah, was a human rights activist who cooked for the homeless, stood vigil at San Quentin on nights when the state of California executed prisoners, worked with autistic children in public schools, and with the American Jewish World Service, helped rebuild homes in El Salvador after a hurricane and traveled to India to oppose child labor. In a review of Horowitz's paean to Sarah, in which Horowitz explores their estrangement and reconciliation, FrontPage magazine associate editor David Swindle wrote that she fused "the painful lessons of her father's life with a mystical Judaism to complete the task he never could: showing how the Left could save itself from self-destruction."

After ending his first marriage, Horowitz married Sam Moorman. When they later divorced, he married Shay Marlowe. After the marriage with Marlowe also ended in divorce, Horowitz married April Mullvain Horowitz, his present wife. They live in Los Angeles County.

Muslim Students' Association

On April 14, 2008, the David Horowitz Freedom Center ran an advertisement in the Daily Nexus, the University of California Santa Barbara school newspaper that stated, "the Muslim Student Association is a radical political group that was founded by members of the Muslim Brotherhood, the godfather of Al Qaeda and Hamas, to bring the jihad into the heart of American higher education." MSA Refutes Ad in Nexus Connecting Group to Jihad - Daily Nexus The Nexus editor stated that Horowitz's ad, while not necessarily the view of the newspaper's staff, was a protected form of free speech and the paper's advertising representatives continued to accept other Horowitz ads. Meanwhile, the GW Hatchet at George Washington University apologized for running Horowitz's ad, noting that it will "provide more stringent guidelines for advertisements." Aharon Morris, a member of the UC Santa Barbara chapter of MSA, gave a statement that ran the next day saying that the underlying [message] was an "ambiguous and perceived threat" of a UCSB group being a terrorist organization and the ad is not only "hurtful but threatening" and could "incite violence" on campus. Horowitz responded in another article by arguing that the President and members of UCSB's MSA essentially supported the "jihad network" by refusing to sign a document to "condemn the genocidal incitements and actions of Hamas and Iran." Freedom Center Explains Controversial Advertisement - Daily Nexus

Academia

Some stories Horowitz has used as evidence that U.S. colleges and universities are bastions of liberal indoctrination have been disputed. For example, Horowitz alleged that a University of Northern Colorado student received a failing grade on a final exam for refusing to write an essay arguing that George W. Bush is a war criminal. FrontPage Magazine University of N. Colorado Story Confirmed - University of Northern Colorado - News - Students For Academic Freedom A spokeswoman for the university said that the test question was not as described by Horowitz and that there were nonpolitical reasons for the grade, which was not an F. Tattered Poster Child :: Inside Higher Ed :: Higher Education's Source for News, and Views and Jobs Horowitz identified the professor in this story as Robert Dunkley, an assistant professor of criminal justice at Northern Colorado. Dunkley said Horowitz made him an example of "liberal bias" in academia and yet, "Dunkley said that he comes from a Republican family, is a registered Republican and considers himself politically independent, taking pride in never having voted a straight party ticket," Inside Higher Ed reported. Dunkley said Horowitz never contacted him, but rather "cooked this whole thing up."

In another instance, Horowitz stated that a Pennsylvania State University biology professor showed his students the film Fahrenheit 9/11 just before the 2004 election in an attempt to influence their votes. Article Pressed by Inside Higher Ed, Horowitz reversed himself and retracted the story. Retractions From David Horowitz :: Inside Higher Ed :: Higher Education's Source for News, and Views and Jobs

Horowitz has also come under fire for material in his books, particularly The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America, as New York University Professor Todd Gitlin has written. SIVACRACY.NET: Todd Gitlin on Horowitz' "dangerous professors" The group Free Exchange on Campus issued a 50-page report in May 2006 in which they take issue with many of Horowitz's assertions in the book and describe what they see as factual errors, unsubstantiated assertions, and quotations which appear to be either misquoted or taken out of context. Free Exchange on Campus - Downloads Fact-Checking David Horowitz :: Inside Higher Ed :: Higher Education's Source for News, and Views and Jobs History News Network

Some of the professors listed in the book as "dangerous" have replied. David Horowitz has a list - Insiderhighered Caroline Higgins says she finds it absurd that she's being criticized for teaching about peace and social justice. She also notes that she puts her syllabi online, so students already know what her beliefs are. Joe Feagin, whom Horowitz criticized for studying racism and sexism, said that his conclusions are based on a 43-year research career in which he has published nearly 50 books and 180 research articles. Feagin asked about Horowitz's credentials, asking whether Horowitz has "done 40 years of solid research on racial and gender issues?" Juan Cole, whom Horowitz criticized for his studies on the Middle East, says of Horowitz: "He is an ideologue and he has a particular view of the Arab-Israeli conflict which cannot be sustained by anyone who studies the region with primary texts and a global perspective."

Allegations of racism

Chip Berlet, writing for the liberal Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), identified Horowitz's Center for the Study of Popular Culture as one of 17 "right-wing foundations and think tanks support[ing] efforts to make bigoted and discredited ideas respectable." Berlet accused Horowitz of blaming slavery on "'black Africans abetted by dark-skinned Arabs'" and of "attack[ing] minority 'demands for special treatment' as 'only necessary because some blacks can't seem to locate the ladder of opportunity within reach of others,' rejecting the idea that they could be the victims of lingering racism." Responding with an open letter to Morris Dees, president of the SPLC, Horowitz stated that his reminder that the slaves transported to America were bought from African and Arab slavers was a response to demands that only whites pay blacks reparations, not to hold Africans and Arabs solely responsible for slavery, and that the statement that he had denied lingering racism was "a calculated and carefully constructed lie." The letter said that Berlet's work was "so tendentious, so filled with transparent misrepresentations and smears that if you continue to post the report you will create for your Southern Poverty Law Center a well-earned reputation as a hate group itself." The SPLC refused, and subsequent critical pieces on Berlet and the SPLC have been featured on Horowitz's website and personal blog. FrontPage Magazine

Tim Wise, self-described "anti-racist essayist, lecturer and activist", criticized ZNet Commentary: Making Nice With Racists: David Horowitz and The Soft Pedaling Of White Supremacy Horowitz in the left-wing publication Znet for associating with alleged racists, pointing to his acceptance of funding from the Bradley Foundation, which supported the publication of The Bell Curve, as well for running a modified piece by white nationalist Jared Taylor on the media treatment of black-on-white murders. When Horowitz ran the piece, he admitted that the decision to do so would be controversial but denied that Taylor was a racist, instead arguing that his "racialism" was an example of identity politics precipitated by an intellectual surrender to multiculturalism; Horowitz denied that he and his publication share Taylor's agenda.

• Student: The Political Activities of the Berkeley Students (New York: Ballantine Books, 1962)
• Corporations and the Cold War (editor) (New York: Monthly Review, 1969)
• Sinews of Empire Ramparts, October 1969, pp. 32—42
• Empire and Revolution: A Radical Interpretation of Contemporary History (1969) ISBN 0-394-70856-3
• Corporations and the Cold War, edited, and with introduction (1970) ISBN 0-85345-160-5
• The Free World Colossus: A Critique of American Foreign Policy in the Cold War (1971) ISBN 0-8090-0107-1
• Second Thoughts: Former Radicals Look Back at the Sixties, ed. by Peter Collier and David Horowitz (Lanham, MD: Madison Books, 1989) ISBN 0-8191-7148-4
• Destructive Generation: Second Thoughts About the '60s, by Peter Collier and David Horowitz (New York: Summit Books/Simon & Schuster, 1989) ISBN 0-671-66752-1
• Radical Son: A Generational Odyssey (New York: The Free Press, 1997) autobiography ISBN 0-684-82793-x
• The Race Card: White Guilt, Black Resentment, and the Assault on Truth and Justice (Prima Lifestyles, 1997) ISBN 0761509429
• Hating Whitey: and Other Progressive Causes (Spence Publishing, 1999) ISBN 1-890626-21-X
• The Politics of Bad Faith: The Radical Assault on America’s Future (Free Press, 2000) ISBN 0684856794
• The Art of Political War And Other Radical Pursuits (Spence Publishing, 2000) ISBN 1890626287
• How to Beat the Democrats and Other Subversive Ideas (Spence Publishing, 2002) ISBN 1890626414
• Uncivil Wars: The Controversy Over Reparations For Slavery (2002) ISBN 1-893554-44-9
• Left Illusions: An Intellectual Odyssey (Spence Publishing, 2003) ISBN 1-890626-51-1
• Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left (Regnery Publishing, 2004) ISBN 0-89526-076-X
• The Anti-Chomsky Reader with Peter Collier (Encounter Books, 2004) ISBN 1-893554-97-X
• The End Of Time (2005) ISBN 1-59403-080-4
• The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America (Regnery Publishing, 2006) ISBN 0-89526-003-4
• Shadow Party: How George Soros, Hillary Clinton, and Sixties Radicals Seized Control of the Democratic Party (Thomas Nelson Books, 2007) ISBN 1595551034
• Indoctrination U:The Left's War Against Academic Freedom (Encounter Books, 2007) ISBN 1594031908

Histories co-authored with Peter Collier

• The Rockefellers: An American Dynasty (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1976) ISBN 0-03-008371-0
• The Kennedys: An American Drama (New York: Summit Books/Simon & Schuster, 1985) ISBN 0-671-44793-9
• The Fords: An American Epic (New York: Summit Books/Simon & Schuster, 1987) ISBN 0-671-66951-6
• The Roosevelts: An American Saga (1994)