Mike S. Adams was born in Columbus, Mississippi on October 30, 1964. While a student at Clear Lake High School in Houston, TX, his team won the state 5A soccer championship. Adams graduated from C.L.H.S. in 1983 with a 1.8 GPA. He was ranked 734 among a class of 740, largely as a result of flunking English all four years of high school.
After obtaining an Associate's degree in psychology from San Jacinto College, Mike Adams moved on to Mississippi State University where he joined the Sigma Chi Fraternity. While living in the fraternity house, his GPA rose to 3.4, allowing him to finish his B.A., and then to pursue a Master's in Psychology. In 1990, Adams turned down a chance to pursue a PhD in psychology from the University of Georgia, opting instead to remain at Mississippi State to study Sociology/Criminology. This decision was made entirely on the basis of his reluctance to quit his night job as member of a musical duo. Playing music in bars and at fraternity parties and weddings financed his education. He also played for free beer.
Upon getting his doctorate in 1993, Mike Adams, then an atheist and a Democrat, was hired by UNC-Wilmington to teach in the criminal justice program. A few years later, Adams abandoned his atheism and also became a Republican. He also nearly abandoned teaching when he took a one-year leave of absence to study law at UNC-Chapel Hill in 1998.
After returning to teach at UNC-Wilmington, Mike Adams won the Faculty Member of the Year award (issued by the Office of the Dean of Students) for the second time in 2000.
After his involvement in a well publicized free speech controversy in the wake of the 911 terror attacks, Mike Adams became a vocal critic of the diversity movement in academia. He has since made appearances on shows like Hannity and Colmes, the O'Reilly Factor, and Glenn Beck. His column on TownHall.com has earned him countless hate mails - often from radical feminists who hate males.
Mike Adams published his first book, Welcome to the Ivory Tower of Babel, in 2004. His second book, Feminists Say the Darndest Things: A Politically Incorrect Professor Confronts "Womyn" On Campus, was published in 2008. Later that year, Adams joined the faculty of Summit Ministries in Colorado where he spends his summers lecturing against abortion and in favor of First Amendment rights on college campuses.
In addition to lecturing on the First Amendment, Mike Adams is actively involved in legal challenges to campus censorship. Represented by the ADF, he won a landmark First Amendment case before the 4th Circuit in Richmond, VA. Decided in 2011, Adams v UNCW held that professors publishing columns and giving speeches have the full protection of the First Amendment when discussing matters of public concern. Hence, when professors report such activities as part of their annual review, tenure, or promotion materials the university does not have license to discriminate on the basis of the professor's viewpoint.
Dr. Adams' third book, Letters to a Young Progressive, was published in April of 2013. In 2014, Adams v. UNCW finally went to trial to determine whether the university violated the First Amendment in 2006 by denying his promotion to full professor in retaliation for his speeches and columns on TownHall.com. He was represented at trial by David French of the ACLJ and Travis Barham of ADF. On March 20th, the federal jury ruled in Adams favor. On April 8th, the court ordered UNCW to promote Adams and give him seven years back pay. He spent most of the money on guns made by Browning, guitars made by Fender, and amps made by Mesa Boogie.
