Ben Shapiro

Benjamin Aaron Shapiro (born January 15, 1984)[3]  is an American conservative political commentator, public speaker, author, and lawyer. At age 17, he became the youngest nationally syndicated columnist in the United States.[4] [5] [6]  He writes columns for Creators Syndicate and Newsweek, serves as editor-in-chief for The Daily Wire, which he founded, and hosts The Ben Shapiro Show, a daily political podcast and live radio show. An editor-at-large of Breitbart News between 2012 and 2016, he has written ten books, the first being Brainwashed: How Universities Indoctrinate America's Youth (2004) and the latest being The Right Side of History: How Reason and Moral Purpose Made the West Great (2019).

Early Life
Shapiro grew up in a Jewish family in Los Angeles, California.[7]  He developed a talent for violin at a young age,[8]  having performed at the Israel Bonds Banquet in 1996 at twelve years of age.[9]  Shapiro's parents both worked in Hollywood. His mother worked as an executive of a TV company and his father as a composer.[7]  Shapiro's cousin is writer and former child actress Mara Wilson.[2] Skipping two grades (third and ninth), Shapiro went from Walter Reed Middle School to Yeshiva University High School of Los Angeles where he graduated in 2000 at age 16.[10] [5]  He graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2004, at age 20, with a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science and then cum laude from Harvard Law School in 2007.[11]  He then practiced law at Goodwin Procter. As of March 2012 he ran an independent legal consultancy firm, Benjamin Shapiro Legal Consulting, in Los Angeles.[5]

Author
Shapiro became interested in politics at a young age. He started a nationally syndicated column when he was 17 and had written two books by age 21.[12]

In his first book Brainwashed: How Universities Indoctrinate America's Youth (2004), Shapiro argues that students are not exposed to a variety of viewpoints at universities and that those who do not have strong opinions will be overwhelmed by an atmosphere dominated by liberal instructors even if discussion is encouraged in classrooms.[13]

In 2011, HarperCollins published Shapiro's fourth book, Primetime Propaganda: The True Hollywood Story of How the Left Took Over Your TV, in which Shapiro argues that Hollywood has a left-wing agenda that it actively promotes through prime-time entertainment programming. In the book, the producers of Happy Days and M*A*S*H say they pursued a pro-pacifist, anti-Vietnam-War agenda in those series.[14]  The same year Primetime Propaganda came out, Shapiro became a fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center.<sup id="cite_ref-15">[15]

In 2013, Threshold Editions published Shapiro's fifth book, Bullies: How the Left's Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences Americans.<sup id="cite_ref-16">[16]

In 2019, Shapiro published the book The Right Side of History: How Reason and Moral Purpose Made the West Great which focuses on the importance of Judeo-Christian values and laments the decline of those values in modern America.<sup id="cite_ref-:0_17-0">[17] <sup id="cite_ref-18">[18] <sup id="cite_ref-19">[19]  In a May 2019 interview on BBC where Shapiro was promoting his book, the interviewer Andrew Neil suggested that Shapiro's history of remarks were inconsistent with the message of the book.<sup id="cite_ref-:0_17-1">[17]  Shapiro took offense to the questioning, accused Neil (a prominent British conservative journalist) of being a leftist, said Neil was trying to make a "quick buck...off of the fact that I'm popular and no one has ever heard of you", and stormed out of the interview.<sup id="cite_ref-20">[20] <sup id="cite_ref-:0_17-2">[17] <sup id="cite_ref-21">[21] <sup id="cite_ref-22">[22] <sup id="cite_ref-23">[23] <sup id="cite_ref-24">[24]  Shapiro later said that he had been "destroyed" by Neil, commenting on Twitter that he "[had broken his] own rule, and wasn't properly

Columnist
In 2012, Shapiro became editor-at-large of Breitbart News, a conservative website founded by Andrew Breitbart.<sup id="cite_ref-26">[26]  In March 2016, Shapiro resigned from his position as editor-at-large of Breitbart News following what he characterized as the website's lack of support for reporter Michelle Fields in response to her alleged assault by Corey Lewandowski, Donald Trump's former campaign manager.<sup id="cite_ref-27">[27] <sup id="cite_ref-28">[28]  After Shapiro's departure, Breitbart published a piece, falsely attributed to Shapiro's father's pseudonym, saying "Ben Shapiro betrays loyal Breitbart readers in pursuit of Fox News contributorship", which Breitbart later deleted.<sup id="cite_ref-29">[29] <sup id="cite_ref-messy_30-0">[30]  After leaving Breitbart News, Shapiro was a frequent target of anti-Semitic rhetoric from the alt-right.<sup id="cite_ref-messy_30-1">[30]  According to a 2016 analysis by the Anti-Defamation League, Shapiro was the most frequent target of anti-Semitic tweets against journalists.<sup id="cite_ref-31">[31] <sup id="cite_ref-32">[32]

On February 7, 2013, Shapiro published an article citing unspecified Senate sources who said that a group named "Friends of Hamas" was among foreign contributors to the political campaign of Chuck Hagel, a former U.S. Senator awaiting confirmation as Secretary of Defense as a nominee of President Barack Obama, but weeks later Slate reporter David Weigel reported there was no evidence such a group existed.<sup id="cite_ref-33">[33]  Shapiro told Weigel that the story he published was "the entirety of the information [he] had."<sup id="cite_ref-34">[34] <sup id="cite_ref-35">[35] <sup id="cite_ref-36">[36]

On October 7, 2013, Shapiro and business partner Jeremy Boreing co-founded TruthRevolt,<sup id="cite_ref-37">[37]  a U.S. media watchdog and activism website, in association with the David Horowitz Freedom Center. TruthRevolt ceased operations in March 2018.<sup id="cite_ref-38">[38]

Host
In 2012, Shapiro joined KRLA-AM 870 as a host on their morning radio program alongside Heidi Harris and Brian Whitman.<sup id="cite_ref-39">[39]  By 2016, he was one of the hosts for KRLA's The Morning Answer, a conservative radio show. Internal emails showed that Shapiro faced pressure from Salem Media executives, the syndicate that owned the show, to be more supportive of Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential election. Shapiro however remained highly critical of Trump throughout the election.<sup id="cite_ref-40">[40]

Shapiro and Boreing founded The Daily Wire on September 21, 2015. He is editor-in-chief as well as the host of his online political podcast The Ben Shapiro Show, broadcast every weekday.<sup id="cite_ref-41">[41] <sup id="cite_ref-vf_42-0">[42]  As of March 2019, the podcast was ranked by Podtrac as the second most popular podcast in the U.S.<sup id="cite_ref-43">[43]  Westwood One began syndicating The Ben Shapiro Show podcast to radio in April 2018.<sup id="cite_ref-44">[44]  In 2018, Politico described the podcast as "massively popular".<sup id="cite_ref-45">[45]  In January 2019, Westwood One expanded Shapiro's one-hour podcast-to-radio program, adding a nationally syndicated two-hour live radio show, for three hours of Ben Shapiro programming daily.<sup id="cite_ref-46">[46]  As of March 2019, according to Westwood One, The Ben Shapiro Show is being carried by more than 200 stations, including in nine of the top ten markets.<sup id="cite_ref-47">[47]

In September 2018, Shapiro started hosting The Ben Shapiro Election Special on Fox News. The limited-run series covered news and issues relating to the 2018 midterm elections.<sup id="cite_ref-48">[48]

Shapiro has made frequent appearances on PragerU with talks on intersectionality and Hollywood with 4,900,000 to 8,400,000 views as of December 2018.<sup id="cite_ref-49">[49] <sup id="cite_ref-vf_42-1">[42] <sup id="cite_ref-50">[50]

Speaker
Shapiro speaks at college campuses across the United States. In his speeches, he often presents a conservative viewpoint on controversial subjects. He spoke at 37 campuses between early 2016 and late 2017.<sup id="cite_ref-nyt-gladiator_7-2">[7]

Some students and faculty members at California State University, Los Angeles objected to a speech that Shapiro, who was then an editor at Breitbart News, was scheduled to hold at the university on February 25, 2016, titled "When Diversity Becomes a Problem". University president William Covino cancelled the speech three days before it was to take place, with the intention of rescheduling it so that the event could feature various viewpoints on the subject of campus diversity. Covino ultimately reversed his decision, allowing the speech to go on as planned.<sup id="cite_ref-51">[51] <sup id="cite_ref-52">[52]  The day of the speech, student protesters formed human chains, blocking the doors to the event, and staging sit-in protests. When Shapiro began his speech, a protester pulled the fire alarm. After the speech ended, Shapiro was escorted out by campus police.<sup id="cite_ref-53">[53]  Young America's Foundation announced it was filing a lawsuit against the university (with Shapiro as one of the plaintiffs), claiming that the First and Fourteenth Amendment rights of the students were violated by Covino's attempted cancellation of the event, as well as the physical barricading of students from entering or leaving the event.<sup id="cite_ref-54">[54]

In August 2016, DePaul University revoked an invitation for Shapiro to address students at the school and barred him from entering the campus due to "security concerns."<sup id="cite_ref-55">[55]

On September 14, 2017, Shapiro gave a speech at the invitation of the University of California, Berkeley student organization Berkeley College Republicans where he criticized identity politics.<sup id="cite_ref-56">[56] <sup id="cite_ref-57">[57]  The event involved a large police presence which had been promised by Berkeley Chancellor Carol T. Christ in her August letter that supported free speech. Together, the university and the city of Berkeley spent $600,000 on police and security for the event, which transpired with nine arrests but no major incidents.<sup id="cite_ref-58">[58] <sup id="cite_ref-59">[59] <sup id="cite_ref-60">[60]