D’Souza Announced as New Speaker for Lindau Symposium

Dinesh D’Souza, former policy analyst in the Reagan White House and current President of The King’s College in New York, will speak at the 2011 Lindau Symposium at Gustavus Adolphus College Thursday, April 14. D’Souza replaces Michael Novak as the keynote speaker, after Novak was forced to cancel his appearance due to medical reasons.

D’Souza’s speech is titled America: Why America is Loved, Why America is Hated and will be presented at 7 p.m. in Alumni Hall, located on the upper level of the O.J. Johnson Student Union. The event is free and open to the public.

D’Souza has been called one of the “top young public-policy makers in the country” by Investor’s Business Daily. The New York Times Magazine named him one of America’s most influential conservative thinkers and Newsweek cited him as one of the country’s most prominent Asian Americans. D’Souza graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Dartmouth College in 1983 and later served as John M. Olin Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the Robert and Karen Rishwain Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

D’Souza is the author of 13 books, many of which have become bestsellers. His 1991 book Illiberal Education was the first study to publicize the phenomenon of political correctness and sat on the New York Times bestseller list for 15 weeks. His 1997 book Ronald Reagan: How an Ordinary Man Became an Extraordinary Leader was one of the first books to make the case for Reagan’s intellectual and political importance. His 2002 New York Times bestseller What’s So Great About America was critically acclaimed for its thoughtful patriotism.

D’Souza’s articles have appeared in numerous publications, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic Monthly, Vanity Fair, New Republic, and National Review. He has appeared on several television programs, including the Today Show, Nightline, The O’Reilly Factor, Moneyline, and Hannity and Colmes.

The Lindau Endowed Symposium at Gustavus encourages dialogue and promotes broad-based intellectual rigor and appreciation of all viewpoints in order to cultivate a respect for civil discourse for future generations. The Symposium was established with generous funding from Phil ’58 and Nancy Lindau and the Lindau Family. The event aims to ensure that Gustavus students are given the opportunity to examine the pressing issues of the day and that a conservative voice will always be represented and heard on campus.