In response to the flap about UNC Chapel Hill's choice of Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America for its freshman reading program, the Charlotte Observer put out a call for alternative readings. Anyone frustrated with the ongoing left-wing slant of summer reading programs at Chapel Hill and elsewhere could write in with suggestions for books that they felt would be better choices, and many did. On August 24, the Observer published a list of some of the titles readers had submitted. The link to the story is now dead, but here is the list:

Raymond Werts, Charlotte: "The Closing of the American Mind," Allan Bloom; "Alien Nation," Peter Brimelow.

Fred Ray, Asheville: "Gulag: A History," Anne Applebaum.

Bobby Axsom, Mooresville: "Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News," Bernard Goldberg.

Paul Jaminet: "The Road to Serfdom," F.A. Hayek; "Life at the Bottom," Theodore Dalrymple.

Larry McRae, Boone: "Capitalism and Freedom," Milton Friedman; "Civil Disobedience," Henry David Thoreau.

Andrew Balet, Ypsilanti, Mich: "Destructive Generation: Second Thoughts about the '60s," Peter Collier; "Illiberal Education: The Politics of Race and Sex on Campus," Dinesh D'Souza.

Tom E. Arnold: "1632," a novel by Victor David Hansen, free download from the online library at www.baen.com.

Danny Brooks: "The Great Libertarian Offer," Harry Browne; "The Terrible Truth about Liberals," Neal Boortz.

Brian O'Connor: "Kindly Inquisitors: The New Attacks on Free Thought," Jonathan Rauch; "The Dark Side of the Left: Illiberal Egalitarianism in America," Richard Ellis.

Thomas H. Preacher: "Beyond the Melting Pot," Nathan Glazer and Daniel P. Moynihan; "The Shadow University," Alan Kors and Harvey Silvergate.

Harold R. Cadmus, Denver: "The Prince," Machiavelli; "Multiculturalism and the Politics of Guilt: Toward a Secular Theocracy," by Paul Edward Gottfried.

Walter Raffel, Matthews: The Bible; "History, Law and Christianity," John Warwick.

Paul Sedan: "Wealth of Nations," Adam Smith.

Steve Gilmore, Charlotte: "A Dream Deferred: The Second Betrayal of Black Freedom in America," Shelby Steele; "What's So Great About America," Dinesh D'Souza.

Martin Davis, Charlotte: "Eat the Rich," P.J. O'Rourke; "The Conservative Mind," Russell Kirk.

David Cunningham, Charlotte: "The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some are So Rich and Some So Poor," David S. Landes.

Jay Lutz, Statesville: "Final Days," Barbara Olson; "Deadlock," Washington Post.

Norman Powell, Lenoir, and Edward Phifer: "Atlas Shrugged," Ayn Rand.

Marshal A. Jones: "The New Thought Police," Tammy Bruce.

David Cunningham, Charlotte: "The Federalist, or The New Constitution: Papers by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay"; "The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages," Harold Bloom.

Brad D. Williams, Charlotte: "Second Treatise of Government," John Locke; "The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin."

Philip van Hoy: "Conscience of a Conservative," Barry Goldwater; "God and Man at Yale," William F. Buckley.

Gerry Anderson: "The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order," Samuel Huntington; "Commanding Heights," Daniel Yergin and Joseph Stanislaw.

Judson Jones, Mooresville: "Leadership," Rudolph Giuliani; "Guns, Crime, and Freedom," Wayne LaPierre.

Larry Gauvreau, Huntersville: "The Politics of Bad Faith," by David Horowitz; "Catcher in the Rye," J.D. Salinger.

William A. Brafford, Charlotte: "The Real Lincoln," Thomas DiLorenzo; "Civil Rights: Rhetoric or Reality?" Thomas Sowell.

Tim Chavel: "How Then Should We Live? The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture," Francis A. Schaeffer; "The Abolition of Man," C.S. Lewis.

Tom Shuford, Lenoir: "The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn," Diane Ravitch; "The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education has Failed Democracy and
Impoverished the Souls of Today's Students," Allan Bloom.

John M. Miano: "Democracy in America," Alexis de Toqueville; "Here I Stand," Roland Herbert Bainton.

Barry Schneider, Charlotte: "The Killer Angels," Michael Shaara; "The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements," Eric Hoffer.

Tom Garrett: "Death by Journalism," Jerry Bledsoe.

Gail Greenough, Huntersville: "Who Stole Feminism," Christina Hoff Sommers.

Melba Westphal, Matthews: "The Majesty of the Law," Justice Sandra Day O'Conner [sic].

Todd Lowe, Concord: "The South Was Right!" Donald Kennedy and Ronald Kennedy; "Abandoned: The Betrayal of the American Middle Class since World War II," William J. Quirk, Randall R. Bridwell.

Jerry Long, Albemarle: "Wealth and Poverty," George Gilder.

Bobby Axsom of Mooresville: I think reading books from both liberals and conservatives and discussing them in an open and honesty atmosphere by a totally neutral moderator would be a great idea. The problem is that I feel sure, considering that both of their book choices have been liberal, we can be assured that their choice of moderators for the discussions are also liberal.

Larry McRae of Boone: Surely, reading the serious thought of a serious American philosopher would contribute more to freshmen's intellectual development than reading the shallow apologetics of an obscure professor at a third-rate university, a man obviously infatuated with Islam, or the reporting of a serious hypocrite (Ehrenreich never really lived those lives) without the background to understand the people she was meeting.

I doubt that mine, or any other suggestions, will have any impact on the ideologues who rule today in Chapel Hill, but you do have my two cents' worth.

Martin Davis of Charlotte: If Dr. Moeser really wants to educate his students, he should junk the entire curriculum and have every student study "The Conservative Mind" by Russell Kirk for four years (or five or six, as is currently popular).

They would barely make a dint in their understanding of the text, but they would be receiving a well-rounded university education, which is much more than they are currently getting at enormous taxpayer expense.

William A. Brafford of Charlotte: I can't believe you are giving us this opportunity. In passing, I should note that the problem at Carolina is not the books that are being assigned, it's those that aren't, with the resulting danger that students may never hear the arguments on both (or all) sides of many issues.

Irene Corey of Charlotte: I think it is stupid that there is such an uproar over the book. The reason there is such an issue is because people don't like to look at or face the truth about reality. ... Maybe they just want the college students to read ... a "feel good" book that no one could possibly draw any controversies on.

John Grooms of Charlotte: Considering that most of the folks who call themselves "conservative" today have turned traditional conservatism -- with its staunch belief in personal freedoms -- on its head by sticking their noses into everyone else's business,

And considering that many of these same "conservatives" use some version of ideology to cover up what's really mere selfishness,

And considering that many more "conservatives" than would ever admit it have at the core of their "ideals" at least some degree of racism, sexism, anti-Semitism and homophobia, I suggest that an appropriate text for students wanting to understand the current mindset of American so-called conservatism would be "Mein Kampf " by Adolf Hitler.

John B. Harrison of Charlotte: Your observation that "social and political conservatives have written many thoughtful books" must have caused some early readers to choke on their grits. One wonders whether any liberal arts professor at Chapel Hill is aware of that fact. ... My own view ... is that students should read any book the doctors require, provided that a book of countervailing view also be required. ... Academic freedom is not properly defined as the imposition of an intellectual one-way street on students ... .

The responsibility for filling this intellectual void ought to be the chancellor's, not conservative citizens demanding fairness and balance. Nevertheless, you asked for a list, not a lecture. Herewith, mine.

My own sense is that addressing the university's exclusion of conservative viewpoints by turning the tables and assigning more conservative sorts of books instead of liberal ones would backfire--it would merely draw the same outcry and protest from other quarters (not least from the faculty charged with leading group discussion). I also suspect that assigning two books--one liberal and one conservative--in the name of balance would not work. Books don't fall so neatly into political slots; one person's leftist tract is another person's moderate or even conservative one.

More basically, the outcry about a doubled reading load would be loud and long. Incoming students already grumble about having to buy and read and discuss a book for no course credit while on summer vacation. Schools aren't going to have much luck getting freshmen to double their investment of time and money in what they all know is ultimately a gimmicky way of seeming to welcome them to the intellectual life of their school. Entering college students may not have much formal exposure to either liberal or conservative philosophy, but they know makework when they see it.