With all the talk of tolerance and diversity, some in the media think it’s finally time to stand up to the hypocritical bullies who preach such things, while in reality forcing you and your children to accept the opposite. Riley Gaines is standing up to those bullies.
Tom Basile offered some eye-opening commentary on his Saturday morning Newsmax program, America Right Now. He called out Big Academia, which in his opinion has transformed into the polar opposite of what most Americans think higher education should be.
“Former NCAA swimmer, Riley Gaines, is going to sue and demand consequences for activists who assaulted her at San Francisco State University, where she discussed the impact of men playing in women’s sports,” Basile began his segment on Saturday.
“Good for her, and it should start a trend. Whether it’s any judge appointed by Donald Trump, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, commentators like Matt Walsh or Ben Shapiro, or an NCAA swimmer who had her title stolen by a man, disrupting conservative and Republican-aligned speakers on college campuses has become as commonplace as happy hour at the local dive.”
Basile lamented the fact that most public and private universities, not to mention elementary and high schools, seem to be fostering a culture of intolerance that has, in some instances, morphed into violence.
“Unlike in decades past, this is not a limited phenomenon, folks. It’s not a matter of angst-riddled teens and young adults just being rebels without a clue. It is a coordinated and celebrated tactic of the Radical Left to stifle speech on campuses – now assented to, dismissed, and even encouraged by college administrators,” Basile opined.
“The flower children who, likely, never left campus are running these schools today and bringing their romantic notions of 1960s and 70s counterculture with them. And you are paying for them to transform your children. The results have been devastating to American higher education as well.”
It’s hard to argue with Basile, who sees higher education in America as extremely one-sided, shunning diverse opinions at all costs. And the tactics to which they have resorted to building their big, beautiful wall against differing opinions have been staggering.
“Academics and college administrators have become a defacto protected class in America, and that hands-off approach has led to a culture of intimidation, censorship and violence. And here’s the kicker – conservatives, right-of-center activists and influential donors have allowed all this to happen by not using the levers of the law and appropriate political and financial pressure to stop it.
“To be sure, if individuals who are disrupting these events were conservatives, there would be a line of liberal groups and funders stepping up to sue these institutions and demanding action. There would be protests for days and professionally-made signs. Interviews on television galore and even, perhaps, commercials. Students and influencers on the right have just put up with it all for far too long. And it’s time for it to end,” Basile said.
The word academia stems from the ancient Greek hero, Akademos. Plato used the areas outside the city walls of Athens as centers of learning, and these methods of teaching became known as the Old Academy. According to Wikipedia, “academia has come to mean the accumulation, development, and transmission of knowledge across generations as well as its practitioners and transmitters. In the 17th century, British, Italian, and French scholars used the term to describe types of institutions of higher learning.”
Basile believes there is a reason for the extreme, radical one-sided approach across most of today’s colleges and universities.
“Our institutions of higher learning have been co-opted by teacher’s unions,” he said, pointing out the nefarious influences undermining true educational freedom. “Tenure, that all but eliminates accountability and more than a billion dollars from communist China in the last decade, and corporate funding that serves commercial purposes rather than academic discourse.”
Many Americans have become conditioned to keep their conservative views to themselves. Speak up in favor of Republicans or traditional values and you might find yourself unfriended and blocked on Facebook. Or worse yet, your grade might be affected.
Basile brought up recent data, which shows that much of the population has been conditioned to keep quiet and live with extreme intolerance across much of higher education.
“Large percentages of ideologically conservative and moderate students and faculty are now self-censoring out of fear, according to surveys,” Basile noted. “In a culture of repression of speech on America’s campuses created by the Left is even backfiring on the very people who hijacked the system to drive their agenda. According to a 2023 report from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, even some 40% of liberal faculty members also feel intimidated.”
The Harvard Crimson reported last year that more than 80% of Harvard faculty respondents self-identified their political leanings as liberal.
Similarly, an October 2020 article from the American Enterprise Institute discussed a HERI study that showed 60% of college faculty identify as liberal, compared to only 12% saying they are conservative. That is a five-to-one liberal slant across universities, while the country as a whole remains roughly evenly divided.
The article concluded that, “The data for three campus constituencies (faculty, students, and administrators) unequivocally show that liberals are considerably overrepresented on university and college campuses. And the research on campus climate reveals a decrease in openness to non-liberal viewpoints.” The article also stated that, “Regardless of whether campus climate is dominated by liberals or conservatives, as long as professors and students are scared to ask certain questions or share their perspectives, the quality of teaching and learning for all is bound to suffer.”
“The result of all this, folks, is an environment that is authoritarian in nature, where there is open hostility to ideas,” Basile said Saturday. “Those ideas, and the discussion that they engender, are the bedrock foundation of our country and the now-broken university system. Many of these schools are taxpayer-funded.
“Others have endowments in the hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars. They need to feel the financial and legal pain of their discrimination. Conservatives cannot be afraid to sue civilly or press charges against schools and individuals who discriminate against them, assault them, or cancel them.”
Basile believes enough is enough, and that citizens need to finally stand up for freedom of speech against the one-sided thought police.
“State governments have tools at their disposal to restore American higher education, including accreditation, tax dollars and regulations over corporate or foreign donations. States must take action to ensure that any college or university that is accredited within their borders is held to intellectual diversity standards, and doesn’t discriminate in grading, hiring, events, curricula or based on political or religious beliefs.
“They need to effect a credible, non-biases internal review process for teachers who are accused of discriminating against students’ beliefs. There must be new laws that protect students and faculty alike, and requirements that schools take affirmative steps to maintain an environment that is respectful of dialogue,” Basile said.
In an ironic twist, he also advocated for strict, new anti-discrimination legislation.
“Accredited universities, especially those who receive tax money, must be mandated to have standards of conduct for students, to allow for differing points of view, and penalties for behavior that is excessively disruptive or violent. Bullying conservative or religious students should not be tolerated. And physical assault against students or guest speakers should result in expulsion and prosecution,” Basile said, noting that it is far from a federal-only issue.
“States should also immediately restrict schools from taking any money from communist China or businesses linked to communist China. Conservative donors need to close their wallets when their school goes woke or openly discriminates based on political or religious beliefs.”
In recent years, Newsmax has become a go-to source for traditional American television viewers desiring clear-spoken, common-sense opinion. On Saturday, Tom Basile seemed to tap into that need, while offering his final call to action.
“It’s increasingly clear, folks, that school administrators today don’t understand America, or are willing to blindly cast aside their responsibility to foster dialogue for the sake of an agenda that is ultimately self-destructive,” he concluded. “For all of their supposed education, many are just weak-minded spirits, who believe words are weapons and hate speech is just anything that doesn’t fit their worldview. It’s time to make them pay. It’s time to stand up to the bullies in the schoolyard.”
