Ann Atkinson, executive director of the T.W. Lewis Center for Personal Development at Arizona State University’s Barrett Honors College, spoke to The Gateway Pundit about ASU’s tragic decision to fire her and terminate the T.W. Lewis Center after she hosted an event with conservative speakers on campus.
Author of Rich Dad Poor Dad—the #1 personal finance book of all time, entrepreneur and educator Robert Kiyosaki spoke at the event and described the termination of faculty members as “nuts!”
Kiyosaki has written 29 books on financial literacy, including Midas Touch and Why We Want You To Be Rich, co-authored by President Trump. His latest book, The Capitalist Manifesto, which exposes the dangers of Marxism in education, is available here!
“I wrote The Capitalist Manifesto because I read the Communist Manifesto in 1965. And I realized then that my academic system was systemically Marxist,” said Kiyosaki. “Academics are now systemic woke Marxists; most teachers are Marxist, but they just don’t know it. We gotta save our country,” he added.
As The Gateway Pundit reported, Far-left Arizona State University’s Barrett Honors College fired two faculty members for organizing an event with conservative speakers, Charlie Kirk, Dennis Prager and Robert Kiyosaki, earlier this year.
Ann Atkinson wrote an OP-ED titled, “I Paid for Free Speech at Arizona State,” where she details ASU’s decision to fire her “for organizing an event featuring Charlie Kirk and Dennis Prager.”
“I was repeatedly told the values of the Lewis Center do not align with the values of Barrett, the Honors College. Then I was fired, and the program was simultaneously dismantled,” Atkinson told The Gateway Pundit. “The Lewis Center hosted 40 successful programs this spring semester, with a dynamic group of speakers, yet the culture at Barrett has led to the condemnation, shaming, and chilling of our work and of the values the Lewis Center was designed to represent. In a meeting with Barrett leadership, I was even asked to defend the question, ‘Ann, what is going to stop you from inviting the KKK to campus because the speakers you invited (referring to Prager and Kirk) basically share the same values as the KKK?’”
Kiyosaki, a Japanese Marine Corps Veteran, responded to these claims by leftist so-called educators, saying, “I value freedom of speech with malice towards none. All we were doing was educating and teaching.”
“The issue extends beyond chilling and shaming. Some of my Barrett faculty colleagues sent me harassing and threatening emails in the wake of the Health, Wealth, and Happiness program,” Ann continued. “The majority of the Barrett faculty revealed a deep hostility toward divergent views even in light of ASU’s commitment to free speech. They attempted to run a massive campaign – and in some areas were successful – to chill and condemn (or worse) our center, the Health, Wealth, and Happiness program, the speakers, Barrett donors, and the people that were responsible for organizing the event. In a recent meeting with ASU leadership, I was disappointed to learn their view that ‘We allowed the event to happen, but you then have to pay the consequences.’”
“It deeply saddens me that there will be nothing left of the Lewis Center but empty office space after June 30,” she added. ASU told Atkinson that the decision to fire her and consequently disband the Center “was purely a fiscal decision.” This was after major donor T.W. Lewis, the namesake behind the T.W. Lewis Center, “canceled his donor agreement in light of attacks from the Barrett faculty and handling of the situation by the Barrett Dean,” said Ann.
The Dean is shutting the T.W. Lewis Center down, despite the fact that Atkinson was able to save the program with additional funding to continue teaching American values of hard work, civic responsibility, community service, faith, family, entrepreneurship, career success, self-awareness, personal finance, and happiness.
“I am one of many who are incredibly grateful for the years of support from the T.W. Lewis Foundation. After T.W. Lewis canceled funding this spring, I was pleased to have found new donors excited to support the intent of the Lewis Center and to keep it growing. The Barrett Dean expressed no interest in that offer,” Atkinson told The Gateway Pundit.
Atkinson said “the Barrett culture changed” when ASU hired Tara Williams as the college’s new Dean last August. It appears that Williams has selectively allowed its faculty to harass, threaten, condemn, and chill their colleagues in the name of free speech. It also seems that ASU faculty are experiencing a policy and culture crisis as ASU clearly stands by everything that happened. While liberal teachers are allowed to preach political messages and freely express themselves with no repercussions, conservatives are held to a much higher standard and will be canceled for speaking out.
“It is clear ASU believes the faculty were within their rights.” Yet, they allowed conservative educators to be targeted with consequences of threats and condemnation by other faculty. And while the leftist faculty are “within their rights” to use fear to silence others and opinions they disagree with, Atkinson had to defend accusations from Barrett’s public relations department, which accused the speakers of “using fear and lies to oppress people.”
Still, ASU has hosted far-left speakers, including radical critical race theorist Ibram X. Kendi, who has previously compared gun control efforts to the fight to end slavery. Kendi further claimed that children can hold “an adult-like concept of race” and be racist “as early as three years old.” Kendi was the keynote speaker at ASU’s 2023 A. Wade Smith and Elsie Moore Memorial Lecture on Race Relations in April. This wasn’t about political speakers; it was about the wrong political speakers.
Additionally, at least one professor who protested against the “Health, Wealth, and Happiness” event holds expertise in History of Gender, History of Witchcraft, and Magic and Superstition, and his research interests include, Witches and Witchcraft, Anthropology of Religion, History of Christianity, and Goblinology. Some of his books, including Fairies, Demons and Nature Spirits: “Small Gods” at the Margins of Christendom, are proudly displayed and celebrated in the Dean’s office. ASU appears to glorify this strange anti-Christian and irrelevant material while censoring conservative ideas, such as personal well-being and financial success through entrepreneurship.
Original Article: https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/06/exclusive-arizona-state-university-faculty-member-ann-atkinson/
