Scott Johnston, author of the college satire "Campusland: A Novel," told Newsmax TV on Thursday that liberalism at universities has "taken a very dark turn," from when he was in school.
"Colleges have always been liberal," Johnston admitted on "America Talks Live," to host John Cardillo. "Yale was a very liberal place when I went there, but it's taken a very dark turn, particularly on matters like speech. The free speech movement started at Berkeley in the 1960's . . . and that was a movement by campus leftists."
He continued, "Today, it's the campus leftists who are arguing the exact same opposite. They are arguing for speech controls, they're banning speakers, they categorize speech they disagree with as violence. So, it's a very different thing, and . . . it used to be a sideshow that campuses were liberal and people would graduate and grow up, but now they don't and they occupy every human resource department of every corporation, all the foundations, and all the media, etc."
Johnston was then asked about Title IX, a federal civil rights law which prohibits discrimination at educational institutions on the basis of sex.
"Title IX, which started as a nice idea to equalize men's and women's sports, has metastasized into something of a monster," according to Johnston.
"This happened under the Obama administration, specifically the Education Department. And the basic thesis was that a tremendous number of women were being sexually assaulted on campus, and obviously it happens, but they used a lot of very questionable statistics, and using that as an excuse, they said, 'hey, colleges, if you don't come up with a body count, we're going to hold money from you.'
"And there's a lot of money at stake . . . so, basically, due process rights for boys were thrown overboard and accusations of impropriety could get a boy thrown out of campus very quickly."
Johnston added there is "no question" college administrators try to hire liberal staff, who he says are "attracted" to working in education or in the media, rather than the right, who he says are more likely to enter the field of "business."
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