September 18, 2023 • 37 mins
In this episode, Tudor interviews Cherise Trump, the Executive Director of Speech First. They discuss the infiltration of political ideology in K-12 classrooms, focusing on the hiring practices of school districts and the prioritization of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives over educational proficiency. They also explore the impact of this on students' abilities to read and comprehend, the connection between education and crime rates, and the potential consequences for students who graduate without proper education. Cherise highlights the indoctrination happening in schools and the lack of accountability in the education system. The Tudor Dixon Podcast is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Monday, Wednesday, & Friday. For more information visit TudorDixonPodcast.com
Follow Clay & Buck on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/clayandbuck
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, this is Buck Sexton and you're listening to the
Tutor Dixon Podcast, part of the Clay Travers and Buck
Sexton podcast Network. Welcome to the Tudor Dixon Podcast. You know,
today we often hear stories from college campuses across the
country where the whims and ideals of hyperliberal professors overtake
the classroom. This usually stifles any conversation or alternative viewpoints,
(00:24):
but more and more, we're starting to see political ideology
creeping into what our youngest kids learn in K through
twelve classrooms, and we have to wonder why that is
and what's driving it. The National Opportunity Project recently released
a report uncovering how school districts across the country are
looking to fulfill diversity metrics by focusing on their hiring practices.
(00:47):
They're trying to hire on an ideological litmus test versus
skills and qualifications necessary for the job. I mean, think
about that, these are your kids, and they're trying to
fulfill their diversity requirement rather than and look to see
whether or not they're going to teach your children well.
At a time when our kids are already struggling to
catch up, we need them to be surrounded by the
(01:08):
best and most qualified teachers, not simply those who pass
a political litmus test. In fact, it should really never
be someone who passes a political litmus test. Scherise Trump
is the executive director of Speech First and has been
working to address these issues directly with students and schools.
Before I bring Scharis in, let me first tell you
(01:30):
about a great product that I have in my home.
And I really think you want to hear about this.
When you think about the air quality in your home,
ask yourself if all air purifiers are the same, why
did the US Department of Defense select Enviral clans to
protect and purify the air on board our navy ships.
We use it in Nihan because one of my girls
(01:51):
suffers from severe seasonal allergies. And I am not kidding
me when I say it has changed her life. She
has no more headaches, no more swollen eyes, and a
big one for us is no more bloody noses. En
Viral cleans uses patented earth mineral technology and a hospital
grade HEPA filter. This technology is so powerful it destroys
cold and flu viruses, covid allergy, inflaming toxins, mold, and
(02:15):
even more their hospital grade technology is so powerful. Like
I said, it's used on Navy ships and in thousands
of classrooms. The Enviral Clen's promise is far fewer colds,
allergies and better sleep. You well received and free air
quality monitor. With your purchase, honestly test the difference in
your home. Visit Ekpure dot com use code Dixon for
(02:37):
ten percent off your Enviral Clen's home air purification unit
and free air quality monitor plus fast free shipping. That's
one hundred and fifty dollars savings. That's Ekpre dot Com
Code Dixon, Ekpur dot Com, Code Dixon. Let's bring in
Sharise Trump, the executive director of Speech First, and just
to set the record straight, she has no relation to
(02:58):
Donald Trump. And as suris, thank you much for being
here with me today. Yeah, thanks so much for having
me on Twitter. Absolutely so. I have to say that
I knew Speech First as a organization that focused on colleges,
but you're looking at K through twelve, so that's very
interesting to me.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Speech First we work primarily on colleges, but this recent
report has you know, got my feathers very roughfled because
even though it is it is a K through twelve
focused report, and it focuses on what the hiring practices
are in K through twelve in public school districts when
it comes to interview panels and the type of standards
that they have when it comes to diversity, equity and
(03:35):
inclusion initiatives, putting various folks from you know, the LGBTQ
plus community on these hiring panels, and putting minorities on
these hiring panels who are towing that political line on
the left to act as political litmus testers essentially for
those who are there hiring in K through twelve. And
that's concerning to me because you know, first of all,
(03:58):
education is the frontline for all of this culture war
stuff that we're seeing, and you know, when we look
around and you know, of course K through twelve is
pretty straightforward. The level of indoctrination that is they're attempting
to accomplish there, it should be astounding to all of us,
especially when, as you mentioned, they're not prioritizing other things.
We are in a continual decline on proficiencies when it
(04:20):
comes to reading, writing, and arithmetic, and we have a
huge percentage of students should be an abhorrently large percentage
of students. I believe it's forty percent in four year
universities and sixty percent for community colleges having to take
remedial classes before they can even start taking normal classes
in college because they just can't meet that standard.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
For college education.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
So we have all of this that you know, instead,
though they're prioritizing DEI and you know, talking about anti racism,
white privilege, and these various ideas of microaggression, social justice,
climate change, those instead are becoming the big priorities for.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
K through twelve.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
And because I operate primarily on college campuses with higher
ED looking at like free speech rights of students, what
we're talking about there is this is where it all starts.
You know, this is where they're educating educators is in college.
And so you start to see this Marxist ideology really
promulgated on college campuses, and then you wonder how it's
(05:25):
seeping into K through twelve, and this is really where
it's happening.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Well, but what this tells me is that when you
see something that you want to have happen in K
through twelve, you can make it happen. Because this is
obviously something they're saying we want this to be in
our K through twelve schools and we are going to
search away. We're going to search it down until we
find it and we include it in these schools. So
(05:49):
the alternative viewpoint of that is, well, if they were
to say, man, we have got to figure out a
way to get kids to actually read and comprehend what
they're reading, that could be done, but the focus is
not there. How scary is it to think that we
have I look at Michigan. We have schools in Flint,
we have schools in Benton Harbor, we have schools Miskegan,
(06:11):
we have schools in Detroit. They have a five percent
reading in math proficiency. And now that I'm looking to
include diversity, equity and inclusion over making sure these kids
know how to read and do math.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
And this is what's even more interesting.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
I mean that is that when you take that percent,
that five percent, there's definitely more than five percent of
those students graduating being graduated from high school. The goal
there is even more nefarious because you're like, why are
we graduating students who cannot read and write? This is
a serious question because now we're not We're not only
graduating them, we're accepting them into college where we're indebting
(06:47):
them to the federal student loan crisis by saying that
now you can pay tens of thousands of dollars to
take remedial classes. Why is there an entire apparatus and
I call this whole thing a racket, like to me,
it just seems super corrupt. Why is there an entire
rapparatus designed around in debting students and indoctrinating them, making
sure they're not properly educated so that they are moldable
(07:08):
to whatever political agenda is being pushed on them.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
It goes even deeper than that. Can you can relate
so much back to what happens in K through twelve
because if I have that kind of reading proficiency rate,
then I can I can look at what the kids
are the reading proficiency rate is of third graders today
and say this is how much crime will have in
(07:32):
this area by the time these kids graduate. That there
is a direct correlation between the ability to read and
the amount of crime we will see. And this is
something that we hear politicians talking about every day. Oh,
the crime is so bad. We've got these issues where
people are rating stores, but we are promoting this by
not teaching kids to read, and everyone knows that this
(07:53):
link exists, and yet they are still focused on that
who is behind this? And how can we go to
these groups? And I don't know if it's shut them
down or just the way they're thinking, but this is
we are robbing our kids of a future.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Quickly on your point of the direct correlation to crime
rates and the percentages of students who cannot read, write,
or do math, and who are you know, kind of
ending up being like just thrown into society, expected to
operate and function properly without any of the proper support
or knowledge and how it all operates. I think, just
real quickly on that point. It's it's also the factor
(08:32):
that we're setting them up for failure and telling them
that they have graduated and that they've been accepted in
these schools, so you're putting that all on a pedestal.
And if now there's this kind of emotional psychological game
where if they can't even match the level of their
peers in college and they have to drop out or
take remedial courses, that makes them incredibly resentful of the
(08:55):
entire system. And if they have to drop out and
are now indebted the classes that they took and can't
get a job because they don't actually have a degree,
and they kind of spend all this time on trying
to accomplish that. What are they going to do now
in society? You know, what's their place now? There's really
nothing to capture them after that.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Are they resentful of the system? Are they resentful of
the boogeyman government that they they say, well, this boogeyman
is holding me back? They do they really realize that
there were people that robbed them of something in their lives?
Or is this where we have this main divide in
(09:32):
the country where there is one group that says, hey,
I deserve something better, but they don't really understand the
people behind this. I mean, I think that's well, we're
not explaining to people that there are truly people who
understand you are being robbed and continue to allow this
to happen.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
There's definitely no real recognition there at a mass level.
And it's because you know, the narrative is controlled still
by the far left political activists on these campuses and
in you know, when we're talking not just media, but
we're you know, if you're looking at political leaders, they're
not going to sit there and take the blame for
(10:13):
setting their entire and entire generation of their constituents up
for failure, because instead their priority is going to be
graduation numbers. This is what happens when you reduce people
down to numbers. You just see, you're like, how many
students can we get graduated? How many students can we
get into college? How many minorities can we get graduated?
How many can we get into college? But they're not saying, okay,
we graduate them, But are they actually educated?
Speaker 1 (10:35):
You know?
Speaker 3 (10:35):
Is that like are they do they actually have test levels?
Speaker 2 (10:39):
You know, when you're going around saying that standardized testing
is racist and it's it works against the black community,
how on earth do you gauge whether or not these
students actually are knowledgeable enough to graduate high school? And
so you have you have all these No one's going
to really walk this back because they don't want to
take the blame. And so, yeah, you're right, they really
don't know who to blame for this. They've been set
(11:00):
up for failure. Now there's this resentment and there's there's
there's a situation where they're being told the reason so
you feel instead of instead of them blaming the people
who actually need to be held accountable for this, there's
you're now filling that gap in with, Oh, you should
be resentful towards like the white privileged groups in society
because that's who's holding you back. The fact that you
(11:22):
can't do well in college is because it's systemically racist.
The fact that you can't do well in society and
that you have resorted to a life of crime is
because we the society has pushed you down that path
because it is systemically racist, and that is what they're
replacing the narrative with, which is incredibly damaging.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Let's take a quick commercial break. We'll continue next on
the Tutor Dixon Podcast. Where do these hiring practices come from?
Is this is school board policy? Is this coming from
this is school board?
Speaker 3 (11:54):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (11:54):
When you talk about like who's who's to blame and
who we should be plenty peers at. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
Absolutely. So these are the district This is district level.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
From what I can tell, this report looked at the
district hiring practices for schools seventy I believe the report
looked at seventy districts across the country that when it
came out.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
But we should also be looking.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Very closely at the colleges because when you're looking at
the education departments, you know who's they're educating the future educators,
and most of what they're teaching in these departments is
critical race theory, marx societeology, basically how to properly indoctrinate
and brainwash students.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
And it's very far left.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
You know, you talk to college students who are in
these programs, they're not going to push back because they're
surrounded by a bunch of people who are essentially on
the far left and trying to persuade everyone of this agenda.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
So it's kind of this vicious cycle.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
You're going to keep graduating people who are graduating people
who are going to be susceptible to that way of
thinking because they've been kind of indoctrinated for the last
twelve years, and then as they go through this college system,
they can't speak up. It's a totalitarian system essentially, where
they try to control everyone's way of life by what private.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
Conversations you're having all the way to what you talk
about in class or.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
On social media, and there these students are essentially just
going to toe the line and then they're going to
graduate and become educators.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
Well, we talked about some of the school systems that
are hurting the most in Michigan, but you also talk
about segregated classes, and one of them is in Evanston, Illinois.
It's one of the richest suburbs of Chicago there is,
and there's still segregating kids. Obviously, this isn't an issue
of whether or not these parents are going to fight.
(13:39):
These are parents that are going to be involved. Parents
obviously know this is happening. I believe I would have
to believe that in a school system like Evanston, you've
got parents that are pretty involved in the conversations. Are
the parents also at the point where they're like, oh, yeah,
we've been convinced this is the way it has to go.
And if that's the case, then how do you other
(14:01):
parents who go, ah, man, this doesn't look great. How
do they stand up when people in general are kind
of like, Hey, I don't want to I don't want
to rock the boot. I don't want to look like
the bad guy.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
So I'm very encouraged by the recent activity on the
parent front, and that obviously came out of COVID where
parents were exposed to a lot of what was happening
with their kids in school. But there's still a large
percentage of parents that are apathetic. Look, they're busy, they've
got a lot going on. Most households, both parents are
working full time, some are working multiple jobs, so they're
(14:33):
they kind of really lean And this is a bad
habit that started a long time ago, and we really
need to break ourselves of it. And I'm hoping that
all of this parental rights movement organizations are pushing you know,
parents into the right direction, But we really need to
break this habit of relying on the public school system
to raise our kids, because that's essentially what you know,
we're really we're leaning on them to teach them everything,
(14:55):
and really they should be just leaning on them to
teach them the basics and everything else should be taught
at home. But when you're not home, and when no
one's around and everyone's working multiple jobs, and this comes
back to economic struggles and whatnot, then then it's there
is there is some kind of discouraging. You know, your
parents feel discouraged, like what can I do in these situations?
So there I think school choice is a big part
(15:16):
of this solution push giving parents that opportunity to to
pay closer attention and to be more selective about what
public schools they send their kids to. That will just
automatically change the mindset of parents and how they think
about schools when they know that they have options. By
just and this is why they want to go to
(15:38):
the left wants to go against school choice because they
know that the second parents or they have options, they're
going to start becoming much more critical of what's being
taught in the classroom.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
I'll let me push back a little bit on something
you said, because I think it's something that we, I
would say our side tends to say, and I think
it really deters people because I feel like, you know,
I was probably in the category of someone who say, well,
you were letting the public school raise your kids, because
I had a lot of trust for the public school
system and I sent my kids to public school. We
(16:08):
live in a small town. The teachers are you know,
openly in many cases openly Christian, and I felt like
my kids are going to be safe there. And so
the things that I expected from school, which were reading,
learning to read, learning to to do math, learning history,
all of those things. I just felt like I was
(16:30):
safe putting that in their hands because I felt like
that's the responsibility of school. I pay my taxes, I'm
a citizen of this city, and these people, we all
want our community to do well. So my kids are
safe there, and I'm safe taking them there and having
them there seven or eight hours a day to learn
(16:50):
these things. And then I and it really really wasn't
until my last two were in there that one of
my twins started to really struggle with reading, and it
was the school was really lost because once once you
had a kid that had a little bit of an issue,
there was there weren't a lot of resources for them
to figure that out. And that's when you know, then
(17:12):
COVID hit. We moved our kids to a private school.
The whole education experience was completely different. And I have
a lot of guilt looking back and going why didn't
I open my eyes to this and see And I
don't think. I don't know that I really would have
had I not seen the alternative. And if you don't
move your kids, you don't see the alternative. And I
(17:33):
think sometimes when we say, you know, too many parents
are letting the public school raise their kids. It's an
immediate turn off to those parents, like, you know, hey,
wait a minute, don't tell me I'm screwing up my child.
But I think there are ways to talk about this,
and hey, you don't You maybe don't know that they're
hiding a lot of things from you. Well maybe the
(17:53):
school is just not even they're not even aware of
how to get these lessons across to kids. And that's
why it's so important to be involved in the school board.
I mean, I remember going to one of our PTO
meetings and they said, you've got to pay more if
you want to have the same curriculum as the school
(18:14):
right down the street that's in our same district. And
I said, what are you talking about That we would
have to pay out of pocket. They said, we have
to pay the PTA and then we'll get this curriculum
that the school down the street has because you guys
are in a poorer district. And I said, when that
makes no sense. That's and it's not even legal, And
you can't tell me that another school in my same
(18:36):
district is getting different curriculum. The curriculum is supposed to
be paid for by taxes, but these are the things
that you know more unless you are involved, and you're right,
with a two parent working household, it is really hard
for parents to be involved.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
Right, absolutely, And I think you're you're very right in
pointing out the rhetoric and then kind of the narrative
that the right creates around school choice and in public
school system. I mean, I was raised in a single
parent household and I was you know, my mom was
working like two or three jobs, and I was in
the public school system, and really it was kind of
up to me how well I did. It was you know,
(19:12):
the onus was all on me. There wasn't a lot
of oversight from home or from.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
The school I was at. The school I was at.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
Wasn't even nationally ranked, it was not doing well on
test standards, and so that was really kind of again,
like I said, up to me.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
But that and so those.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Situations are are very unfortunate. But I would say, you know,
the biggest issues you mentioned. One thing that you mentioned
was the word safe. You know, as a tax payer,
look like you said, we expect something in exchange for
the taxes that we're paying, something in quality. You know
that in exchange for what we're paying and a lot
(19:49):
of parents, and you know, a lot of folks usually
should feel safe sending our kids to school. But what
the reality is and when I when I go to
college campuses and lecture students on this, it's important when
I talk to them about the importance of debate and skepticism.
The reality is that our country was founded, The United
States was founded on this incredibly high level of skepticism
(20:12):
of the government of the government, and so really we've
kind of lost that skepticism with welfare programs and all
of these public you know, all of these public programs
that have been provided to us. And so in a way,
we really should be very skeptical in all scenarios when
the government says, hey, you know, not just let us
have have your kids for eight hours, but also just
(20:33):
generally when they try to run programs, because it's not
we convince ourselves that now they have our best interests
at heart, But our entire constitution and everything was kind
of written and founded on the idea that actually they don't.
In fact, the restrictions should be on the government because
we don't trust them.
Speaker 3 (20:49):
To have our best interests at heart.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
We are the only ones who can determine what our
interests are and that I think we have lost that,
and I think it's because we don't debate these issues
anymore at the collegiate level or in the academy. We
just kind of assume everything's going to be this way forever.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Let's take a quick commercial break. We'll continue next on
the Tutor Dixon podcast or a Speaking of feeling safe,
this one just totally blows my mind. We've got this
new bill in California that says, if you have a
child that has a two parent custody, you're in a
situation where the parents are divorced or whatever, and one
(21:26):
parent has because half the custody, the other has the
other half custody. One parent is affirming the child's gender.
And I can't even stand that terminology because it just
makes me so crazy to think that a kid. I mean,
then we're talking about any age. You'll be three years
old and the parents like, yeah, the child has decided
(21:46):
to be a different gender. And if that parent goes
to the court and says my child's father or mother
does not affirm the child's gender, that parent can now
in California lose custody. This could be a situation where
the school gets involved and says, hey, we have a
situation where this kid is going home to one parent
(22:09):
and the parent is not affirming the gender the child
has chosen, and instead of the parent being able to
make a decision about their child's health, the quotes can
now say you don't get to see your child anymore.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
So this is actually really terrifying.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
And we have seen this type of policy exists now
for years in countries like Canada, where they have been
actively removing children from households, and you know, in divorce scenarios,
one of the parents doesn't get custody because of the
lack of affirmation of someone's gender identity. And I mean, look,
(22:44):
they already don't even have free speech rights there. They
say that they do, but we know that people get
put in jail and get fined for not using someone's
pronoun because Canada considers it a human rights crisis, and
so there are human rights violation in those situations. But
I think it's when we look at California and some
of these states that are experimenting with these types of policies,
(23:04):
we have to ask ourselves why are they're experimenting with them?
Speaker 3 (23:06):
They're trying to.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
See how much they can get away with, and they
notoriously do this. The left will put out recommendations and
policy recommendations of very far left, very overreaching policies, and
the right will rise up and say no, no, no, no, no,
you cannot do that. That is so unconstitutional, it's so
unfathomable for this country. But what the left accomplishes in
(23:28):
that situation is that they're going to move the Overton
window and they're going to slightly get the conservative movement
to kind of capitulate on something within that, talking about
gender identity, talking about what parents should get control of
the child, which custody of the child. They're going to
get something out of this. So I think it's very
(23:49):
important to us that we actually take very close attention
to what comes out of this. Even if Newsom doesn't
sign the bill into law, what does it mean now
that the idea has been proposed. But of course, this
whole idea of tearing children away from parents in order
to control and manipulate them, this is something we have
(24:09):
seen historically throughout the world. What totalitarian regimes do in
order to gain control over the populace. They turn children
against parents, and so we should be very very suspicious
again of what path this is going to take us down.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
I mean, what path does it take us down? Because
I think we all remember the story of I believe
it was out of Texas, a little boy named James,
whose mother said James was a girl. James was a
twin and the mother said that he was a girl.
The father would videotape the boy saying I don't want
to be a girl. I want to be a boy.
(24:44):
I want to be James. I mean, this whole scenario
is there's a real sickness going on when you have
a little a child in a family who is torn
between two parents, and that the quotes ultimately sided with
my he was forced to go through a gender transition
and take these sterilization hormones and all of these things
(25:09):
that will ultimately a boy who is eight or nine
years old, does he understand that he will never have
an intimate relationship, you will never have children. No, of
course not. You don't understand that when you're that age
and dad is standing up and saying there's something wrong here,
this is not normal, and dad loses rights. I mean
when you say, like this is something that newsom may
(25:31):
or may not sign into law. It's already happening in
communities on a local base, on a local level that
we haven't been able to control. And parents feel like,
how is this happening in the United States of America
where my kid is being taken from me and change.
I mean, it's not reversible. It's so shocking.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
Yeah, it's appalling, And you're right, this is already happening
because you have judges who are basically just determining these
things upon themselves. Well, what happen in California is at
all actually be signed into law and all judges will
be required, you know, by the law. You know, obviously
that's not assuming that there's going to be a bunch
of forthcoming lawsuits against the law itself, which which we
(26:11):
already know and anticipate challenges. But yeah, you do have
a lot of judges kind of going off and just
deciding these things in Texas, of all places, right, Texas,
you would not expect this type of thing to be occurring.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
But that and that was a very early case.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
That was like a couple of years ago, even you know,
it was pretty early on in this discussion with with
what rental rights there are with when it comes to
kids who are being you know, brainwashed into transitioning.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
I think, to be honest, I think you make a
really good point there though, because that did happen in Texas,
and I think sometimes when we talk about this bill
is in California, people go, ah, you know, whatever, it's California.
They're crazy. It's not going to happen in my town,
but it could happen in your town. And what you're
saying is key. There are activist judges across the country
(26:56):
that you don't know. You don't know until you're in
that situation where you're said in front of that judge
and that judge has control over your life, and it
is shocking. And that's why when parents are saying, you know,
I mean, I don't want to rock the boat. I
don't want to be too involved, and we're not saying
you have to be out there picketting outside of school
with signs. But every time you see something that isn't right,
(27:18):
if you speak up, just speaking up, people are less
likely to continue to go forward with it.
Speaker 3 (27:24):
Yeah, absolutely, one hundred percent.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
I always talk to students about how courage is contagious
if everyone just stays silent. That's how they win. You
have to if you just need one person to speak up,
and then everyone in that room will realize that they
kind of all think the same way, and you know,
you're going to get followers. People are going to realize, wait,
I can speak up too. And that's so important is
that even just making a comment, may it may not
seem like a big deal, or may not seem like
(27:47):
you're making.
Speaker 3 (27:47):
A huge impact.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
But if people see you standing up, it's going to
lead to a movement. And that is it may not
be you as a leader, but you speaking up does
make a difference. And so I think that's really important
for parents to recognize. But yeah, you look, you're not
safe anywhere in the country at the end of the
day when it you know, a lot of the schools
we've sued who actively violate students free speech rights are
(28:09):
in red states. We just won against a Texas University
of Houston last year. We're suing Texas State University. Now,
we're suing Oklahoma State University that's in a deep red state.
And we just won against the University of Central Florida
last year. And so that's I mean, it's not really,
you're not really safe because a lot of these there
are little pockets, like you said of activist judges in
(28:29):
certain districts, but also in the academy. These campuses are
very like they're hot spots for far left Marxist ideology.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
Well, how do you spread it unless you go to
the place where it isn't you know? And that's what
I think people have to understand that the only way
you can continue to spread Marxism or communism or just
this radical ideology is to go places where it is
and start to sprinkle it in. And the way they
do it is not, Hey, if you don't do this,
you're wrong, you're a bad person. The way they do
(28:57):
it is if you if you do this, you're loving,
You're welcoming. This is the rape society should be. And
I think that's something that on our side of the
aisle has been we've done it the wrong way. From
the standpoint of people think that if they come to
a right of center, then they have to condemn people,
and so you have to live the way we live,
or you're a bad person. Whereas if you live, if
(29:19):
you live a lifestyle that is right of center, you're
probably going to have a pretty happy life, but we
don't tell people that.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
It's. Like you said, they have to.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
People have to pay close attention to this because it
will sneak up on you. And if you're not paying attention,
if you're not speaking out about it, it can.
Speaker 3 (29:39):
You'll find yourself.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
It's likely these days you could find yourself in a
situation where you are in front of a judge who's
going to rule against you, in a situation that just
seems completely crazy and unreal, like something out.
Speaker 3 (29:51):
Of a dream.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
And you know, these parents who've gone through this stuff
definitely kind of feel that way.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
Well. I think as we've seen some of these people
that have been political activists on our side get these
massive sentences that just seem that they're a little out
of sync with what they've done. I mean, I think
that's just the beginning. And I think that as much
as people might say, well that's not me, you don't
know what will be you, I think that's your point.
(30:18):
You never know when they're going to call you ahead
of in front of a judge and say, hey, guess
what you had wrong? Think what's that right?
Speaker 2 (30:27):
And we're seeing evidence now that this this leftism, this
Marxist ideology is trying to infiltrate law schools. They are
trying to infiltrate, you know, the judicial system, trying to
manipulate it. This what you just mentioned goes back to
an earlier question. I didn't get a chance to answer
because I was I went off on one of my
tangents per usual, but I actually you know, you asked, what's.
Speaker 3 (30:51):
The goal here? What's the ultimate goal?
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Right? And it's it's to so for they want to
consolidate power. This is and the when you look at
totalitarian regime and how they operate. They can't just have
power of the government. They have to have power because
because for them, it's a zero sum game. If you're
pushing back at any level, it's power that they don't
have if you're not relinquishing somewhere. So they have to
(31:15):
have complete and utter control over your life. And it's
not just in order to maintain that power. And that's
how they kind of view this. That's how Marxism views
the world. They cannot they cannot operate in a world.
You can look at the communist regimes and see clear
examples of this. They can't have that power if you're
over here, you know, going on the school board or
(31:36):
shouting at the school board about the types of books
that are in your you know, in front of your
students that exhibit pornography. They can't have that power if
you have people pushing back, so by getting into the judiciary,
by getting into the politics, trying to infiltrate everything as
much as possible in order to control the way of thinking.
You know, this is where the academy comes in once again,
(31:58):
trying to control the way people think in education. It's
that's what ultimately the goal is here. That's why separating
kids from parents is so such a vital part of
their plan. And whether you have look, we don't have
to go into conspiracy theories. I can say that literally
everyone is in on this. It's that you have a
lot of folks who genuinely believe in this types of
(32:18):
social justice rhetoric, the climate change rietoric, a lot of
the far left rhetoric that exists. They really do believe
that this country is racist, systemically racist. But you have
there are people at the top who are pulling a
lot of these strings, like George Soros, who are like
pushing for prosecutors who won't who won't prosecute criminals, you know,
to win elections. But you I think it's just important
(32:40):
to recognize that all of this is feeding into a
common goal, which is the consolidation of power.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
And it's even if we are.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
All going to give each other the benefit of the
ballt and say, obviously not everyone's kind of bought into
that aspect.
Speaker 3 (32:53):
They're still doing the bidding.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
They're still trying to indoctrinate your kids, they're still trying
to get your get parents to lose custody in order
to manipulate the minds of younger generations to like you
were saying earlier, when you get these when you get
these rulings out of the judiciary that are just so
extreme against people for having wrong think, for participating in
(33:18):
things that the left doesn't agree with, then it's what
else could you interpret it as as if not a warning?
Speaker 1 (33:26):
If not, we've been very spoiled up until this point.
I mean, we really hadn't ever seen this. It was
kind of you know, the the two parties in government
were not so different that people could just still say, Okay,
well I'm on this side, I'm on that side. I
can accept that there's another side things have really changed
in the past six or seven years. And I would
(33:48):
say things started changing when Obama became president and there
started to be a real divide because he started to
go after the police. He started to essentially say there's
a different side and against you, and that just that
really started to spread, I believe at that point, and
I think that the other side would blame Trump, But
(34:09):
I got to say, if we go a little bit
farther back, we would see where this began and where
these organizations started to pop up. And I just think
that things in our lives have changed to a point
where we can't be as spoiled, we can't be as
as laid back about the country as we were, and
people just need to get involved and make sure that
we preserve the American values that we've always had. Where
(34:32):
can people find more information about Speech First and what
you're doing.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
Yeah, absolutely so. Speech First dot org is our website.
You can go on there. We also, you know, we
have a podcast, well said, you can kind of queue
up to date with the folks that I interview in
higher ed and kind of who are working in that
space of free speech. But additionally, you know, you can
find us on Twitter, social media speech.
Speaker 3 (34:51):
First, you can find me Sherise Trump.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
It's you know, just type in my name on Twitter
and you can you can find my account. But if
you want to sign up for our emails, you can
go out our website and so to either become a
member or just to receive regular emails for our updates.
You can also press donate. You know, we do see
a lot of universities that violate students free speech rights,
and litigation is something that is.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
Very costly but very very effective.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
So you know, that's something that I always encourage if
you can support wherever you can that that's very helpful
for us getting the word out. And you know, it's
been great being on here with you, tutor. I think
there's we talked so much about things that could easily
be teased out into their.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
Own podcasts, so into their own episodes. But it's great.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
Yeah, I think something you just said is incredibly key
because oftentimes people go, well, gosh, I don't want to
get involved. I don't know how to get involved. And
if you don't want to publicly put your face to
something like this, then and go out there and talk
and fight yourself. These lawsuits are so important because they
(35:50):
are protecting what we have always known as our country.
And this is at the university level. And I always
say to people, you have a lot of control over
K through twelve. Even though we see this stuff going
on in K through twelve, we as parents still have
that ability to have kids come home, talk about your day.
I mean, we had somebody on here one day that
said that we are now seeing that parents are having
(36:12):
less than fifteen minutes of meaningful conversation a week with
their kids. Don't let that happen. Come home every day,
talk about what happened at school, ask about the teachers,
ask those things. But K through twelve you still have
a lot of influence to have your family values there.
When your kids go to college, that's when you're not
there every day. You're not having those meaningful conversations because
you just you just can't. You're just not there. And
(36:34):
so that's when a company, on an organization like Speech
First is so important. So if you can make that donation,
just know that that's going to protect our future, to
protect our children, to protect your children and your grandchildren
and the future of this country. So Charies, thank you
so much for being on today and thank you for
sharing what you guys do.
Speaker 3 (36:51):
Absolutely, thanks so much for having.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
Me, absolutely, and thank you all for joining us on
the Tutor Dixon Podcast. For this episode and others, go
to Tudor dixonpodcast dot com. You can subscribe right there,
or check out the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your podcasts and join us next time on
the Tutor Dixon Podcast. Have a blessed day,
Hey, this is Buck Sexton and you're listening to the
Tutor Dixon Podcast, part of the Clay Travers and Buck
Sexton podcast Network. Welcome to the Tudor Dixon Podcast. You know,
today we often hear stories from college campuses across the
country where the whims and ideals of hyperliberal professors overtake
the classroom. This usually stifles any conversation or alternative viewpoints,
(00:24):
but more and more, we're starting to see political ideology
creeping into what our youngest kids learn in K through
twelve classrooms, and we have to wonder why that is
and what's driving it. The National Opportunity Project recently released
a report uncovering how school districts across the country are
looking to fulfill diversity metrics by focusing on their hiring practices.
(00:47):
They're trying to hire on an ideological litmus test versus
skills and qualifications necessary for the job. I mean, think
about that, these are your kids, and they're trying to
fulfill their diversity requirement rather than and look to see
whether or not they're going to teach your children well.
At a time when our kids are already struggling to
catch up, we need them to be surrounded by the
(01:08):
best and most qualified teachers, not simply those who pass
a political litmus test. In fact, it should really never
be someone who passes a political litmus test. Scherise Trump
is the executive director of Speech First and has been
working to address these issues directly with students and schools.
Before I bring Scharis in, let me first tell you
(01:30):
about a great product that I have in my home.
And I really think you want to hear about this.
When you think about the air quality in your home,
ask yourself if all air purifiers are the same, why
did the US Department of Defense select Enviral clans to
protect and purify the air on board our navy ships.
We use it in Nihan because one of my girls
(01:51):
suffers from severe seasonal allergies. And I am not kidding
me when I say it has changed her life. She
has no more headaches, no more swollen eyes, and a
big one for us is no more bloody noses. En
Viral cleans uses patented earth mineral technology and a hospital
grade HEPA filter. This technology is so powerful it destroys
cold and flu viruses, covid allergy, inflaming toxins, mold, and
(02:15):
even more their hospital grade technology is so powerful. Like
I said, it's used on Navy ships and in thousands
of classrooms. The Enviral Clen's promise is far fewer colds,
allergies and better sleep. You well received and free air
quality monitor. With your purchase, honestly test the difference in
your home. Visit Ekpure dot com use code Dixon for
(02:37):
ten percent off your Enviral Clen's home air purification unit
and free air quality monitor plus fast free shipping. That's
one hundred and fifty dollars savings. That's Ekpre dot Com
Code Dixon, Ekpur dot Com, Code Dixon. Let's bring in
Sharise Trump, the executive director of Speech First, and just
to set the record straight, she has no relation to
(02:58):
Donald Trump. And as suris, thank you much for being
here with me today. Yeah, thanks so much for having
me on Twitter. Absolutely so. I have to say that
I knew Speech First as a organization that focused on colleges,
but you're looking at K through twelve, so that's very
interesting to me.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Speech First we work primarily on colleges, but this recent
report has you know, got my feathers very roughfled because
even though it is it is a K through twelve
focused report, and it focuses on what the hiring practices
are in K through twelve in public school districts when
it comes to interview panels and the type of standards
that they have when it comes to diversity, equity and
(03:35):
inclusion initiatives, putting various folks from you know, the LGBTQ
plus community on these hiring panels, and putting minorities on
these hiring panels who are towing that political line on
the left to act as political litmus testers essentially for
those who are there hiring in K through twelve. And
that's concerning to me because you know, first of all,
(03:58):
education is the frontline for all of this culture war
stuff that we're seeing, and you know, when we look
around and you know, of course K through twelve is
pretty straightforward. The level of indoctrination that is they're attempting
to accomplish there, it should be astounding to all of us,
especially when, as you mentioned, they're not prioritizing other things.
We are in a continual decline on proficiencies when it
(04:20):
comes to reading, writing, and arithmetic, and we have a
huge percentage of students should be an abhorrently large percentage
of students. I believe it's forty percent in four year
universities and sixty percent for community colleges having to take
remedial classes before they can even start taking normal classes
in college because they just can't meet that standard.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
For college education.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
So we have all of this that you know, instead,
though they're prioritizing DEI and you know, talking about anti racism,
white privilege, and these various ideas of microaggression, social justice,
climate change, those instead are becoming the big priorities for.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
K through twelve.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
And because I operate primarily on college campuses with higher
ED looking at like free speech rights of students, what
we're talking about there is this is where it all starts.
You know, this is where they're educating educators is in college.
And so you start to see this Marxist ideology really
promulgated on college campuses, and then you wonder how it's
(05:25):
seeping into K through twelve, and this is really where
it's happening.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Well, but what this tells me is that when you
see something that you want to have happen in K
through twelve, you can make it happen. Because this is
obviously something they're saying we want this to be in
our K through twelve schools and we are going to
search away. We're going to search it down until we
find it and we include it in these schools. So
(05:49):
the alternative viewpoint of that is, well, if they were
to say, man, we have got to figure out a
way to get kids to actually read and comprehend what
they're reading, that could be done, but the focus is
not there. How scary is it to think that we
have I look at Michigan. We have schools in Flint,
we have schools in Benton Harbor, we have schools Miskegan,
(06:11):
we have schools in Detroit. They have a five percent
reading in math proficiency. And now that I'm looking to
include diversity, equity and inclusion over making sure these kids
know how to read and do math.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
And this is what's even more interesting.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
I mean that is that when you take that percent,
that five percent, there's definitely more than five percent of
those students graduating being graduated from high school. The goal
there is even more nefarious because you're like, why are
we graduating students who cannot read and write? This is
a serious question because now we're not We're not only
graduating them, we're accepting them into college where we're indebting
(06:47):
them to the federal student loan crisis by saying that
now you can pay tens of thousands of dollars to
take remedial classes. Why is there an entire apparatus and
I call this whole thing a racket, like to me,
it just seems super corrupt. Why is there an entire
rapparatus designed around in debting students and indoctrinating them, making
sure they're not properly educated so that they are moldable
(07:08):
to whatever political agenda is being pushed on them.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
It goes even deeper than that. Can you can relate
so much back to what happens in K through twelve
because if I have that kind of reading proficiency rate,
then I can I can look at what the kids
are the reading proficiency rate is of third graders today
and say this is how much crime will have in
(07:32):
this area by the time these kids graduate. That there
is a direct correlation between the ability to read and
the amount of crime we will see. And this is
something that we hear politicians talking about every day. Oh,
the crime is so bad. We've got these issues where
people are rating stores, but we are promoting this by
not teaching kids to read, and everyone knows that this
(07:53):
link exists, and yet they are still focused on that
who is behind this? And how can we go to
these groups? And I don't know if it's shut them
down or just the way they're thinking, but this is
we are robbing our kids of a future.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Quickly on your point of the direct correlation to crime
rates and the percentages of students who cannot read, write,
or do math, and who are you know, kind of
ending up being like just thrown into society, expected to
operate and function properly without any of the proper support
or knowledge and how it all operates. I think, just
real quickly on that point. It's it's also the factor
(08:32):
that we're setting them up for failure and telling them
that they have graduated and that they've been accepted in
these schools, so you're putting that all on a pedestal.
And if now there's this kind of emotional psychological game
where if they can't even match the level of their
peers in college and they have to drop out or
take remedial courses, that makes them incredibly resentful of the
(08:55):
entire system. And if they have to drop out and
are now indebted the classes that they took and can't
get a job because they don't actually have a degree,
and they kind of spend all this time on trying
to accomplish that. What are they going to do now
in society? You know, what's their place now? There's really
nothing to capture them after that.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Are they resentful of the system? Are they resentful of
the boogeyman government that they they say, well, this boogeyman
is holding me back? They do they really realize that
there were people that robbed them of something in their lives?
Or is this where we have this main divide in
(09:32):
the country where there is one group that says, hey,
I deserve something better, but they don't really understand the
people behind this. I mean, I think that's well, we're
not explaining to people that there are truly people who
understand you are being robbed and continue to allow this
to happen.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
There's definitely no real recognition there at a mass level.
And it's because you know, the narrative is controlled still
by the far left political activists on these campuses and
in you know, when we're talking not just media, but
we're you know, if you're looking at political leaders, they're
not going to sit there and take the blame for
(10:13):
setting their entire and entire generation of their constituents up
for failure, because instead their priority is going to be
graduation numbers. This is what happens when you reduce people
down to numbers. You just see, you're like, how many
students can we get graduated? How many students can we
get into college? How many minorities can we get graduated?
How many can we get into college? But they're not saying, okay,
we graduate them, But are they actually educated?
Speaker 1 (10:35):
You know?
Speaker 3 (10:35):
Is that like are they do they actually have test levels?
Speaker 2 (10:39):
You know, when you're going around saying that standardized testing
is racist and it's it works against the black community,
how on earth do you gauge whether or not these
students actually are knowledgeable enough to graduate high school? And
so you have you have all these No one's going
to really walk this back because they don't want to
take the blame. And so, yeah, you're right, they really
don't know who to blame for this. They've been set
(11:00):
up for failure. Now there's this resentment and there's there's
there's a situation where they're being told the reason so
you feel instead of instead of them blaming the people
who actually need to be held accountable for this, there's
you're now filling that gap in with, Oh, you should
be resentful towards like the white privileged groups in society
because that's who's holding you back. The fact that you
(11:22):
can't do well in college is because it's systemically racist.
The fact that you can't do well in society and
that you have resorted to a life of crime is
because we the society has pushed you down that path
because it is systemically racist, and that is what they're
replacing the narrative with, which is incredibly damaging.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Let's take a quick commercial break. We'll continue next on
the Tutor Dixon Podcast. Where do these hiring practices come from?
Is this is school board policy? Is this coming from
this is school board?
Speaker 3 (11:54):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (11:54):
When you talk about like who's who's to blame and
who we should be plenty peers at. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
Absolutely. So these are the district This is district level.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
From what I can tell, this report looked at the
district hiring practices for schools seventy I believe the report
looked at seventy districts across the country that when it
came out.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
But we should also be looking.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Very closely at the colleges because when you're looking at
the education departments, you know who's they're educating the future educators,
and most of what they're teaching in these departments is
critical race theory, marx societeology, basically how to properly indoctrinate
and brainwash students.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
And it's very far left.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
You know, you talk to college students who are in
these programs, they're not going to push back because they're
surrounded by a bunch of people who are essentially on
the far left and trying to persuade everyone of this agenda.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
So it's kind of this vicious cycle.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
You're going to keep graduating people who are graduating people
who are going to be susceptible to that way of
thinking because they've been kind of indoctrinated for the last
twelve years, and then as they go through this college system,
they can't speak up. It's a totalitarian system essentially, where
they try to control everyone's way of life by what private.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
Conversations you're having all the way to what you talk
about in class or.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
On social media, and there these students are essentially just
going to toe the line and then they're going to
graduate and become educators.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
Well, we talked about some of the school systems that
are hurting the most in Michigan, but you also talk
about segregated classes, and one of them is in Evanston, Illinois.
It's one of the richest suburbs of Chicago there is,
and there's still segregating kids. Obviously, this isn't an issue
of whether or not these parents are going to fight.
(13:39):
These are parents that are going to be involved. Parents
obviously know this is happening. I believe I would have
to believe that in a school system like Evanston, you've
got parents that are pretty involved in the conversations. Are
the parents also at the point where they're like, oh, yeah,
we've been convinced this is the way it has to go.
And if that's the case, then how do you other
(14:01):
parents who go, ah, man, this doesn't look great. How
do they stand up when people in general are kind
of like, Hey, I don't want to I don't want
to rock the boot. I don't want to look like
the bad guy.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
So I'm very encouraged by the recent activity on the
parent front, and that obviously came out of COVID where
parents were exposed to a lot of what was happening
with their kids in school. But there's still a large
percentage of parents that are apathetic. Look, they're busy, they've
got a lot going on. Most households, both parents are
working full time, some are working multiple jobs, so they're
(14:33):
they kind of really lean And this is a bad
habit that started a long time ago, and we really
need to break ourselves of it. And I'm hoping that
all of this parental rights movement organizations are pushing you know,
parents into the right direction, But we really need to
break this habit of relying on the public school system
to raise our kids, because that's essentially what you know,
we're really we're leaning on them to teach them everything,
(14:55):
and really they should be just leaning on them to
teach them the basics and everything else should be taught
at home. But when you're not home, and when no
one's around and everyone's working multiple jobs, and this comes
back to economic struggles and whatnot, then then it's there
is there is some kind of discouraging. You know, your
parents feel discouraged, like what can I do in these situations?
So there I think school choice is a big part
(15:16):
of this solution push giving parents that opportunity to to
pay closer attention and to be more selective about what
public schools they send their kids to. That will just
automatically change the mindset of parents and how they think
about schools when they know that they have options. By
just and this is why they want to go to
(15:38):
the left wants to go against school choice because they
know that the second parents or they have options, they're
going to start becoming much more critical of what's being
taught in the classroom.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
I'll let me push back a little bit on something
you said, because I think it's something that we, I
would say our side tends to say, and I think
it really deters people because I feel like, you know,
I was probably in the category of someone who say, well,
you were letting the public school raise your kids, because
I had a lot of trust for the public school
system and I sent my kids to public school. We
(16:08):
live in a small town. The teachers are you know,
openly in many cases openly Christian, and I felt like
my kids are going to be safe there. And so
the things that I expected from school, which were reading,
learning to read, learning to to do math, learning history,
all of those things. I just felt like I was
(16:30):
safe putting that in their hands because I felt like
that's the responsibility of school. I pay my taxes, I'm
a citizen of this city, and these people, we all
want our community to do well. So my kids are
safe there, and I'm safe taking them there and having
them there seven or eight hours a day to learn
(16:50):
these things. And then I and it really really wasn't
until my last two were in there that one of
my twins started to really struggle with reading, and it
was the school was really lost because once once you
had a kid that had a little bit of an issue,
there was there weren't a lot of resources for them
to figure that out. And that's when you know, then
(17:12):
COVID hit. We moved our kids to a private school.
The whole education experience was completely different. And I have
a lot of guilt looking back and going why didn't
I open my eyes to this and see And I
don't think. I don't know that I really would have
had I not seen the alternative. And if you don't
move your kids, you don't see the alternative. And I
(17:33):
think sometimes when we say, you know, too many parents
are letting the public school raise their kids. It's an
immediate turn off to those parents, like, you know, hey,
wait a minute, don't tell me I'm screwing up my child.
But I think there are ways to talk about this,
and hey, you don't You maybe don't know that they're
hiding a lot of things from you. Well maybe the
(17:53):
school is just not even they're not even aware of
how to get these lessons across to kids. And that's
why it's so important to be involved in the school board.
I mean, I remember going to one of our PTO
meetings and they said, you've got to pay more if
you want to have the same curriculum as the school
(18:14):
right down the street that's in our same district. And
I said, what are you talking about That we would
have to pay out of pocket. They said, we have
to pay the PTA and then we'll get this curriculum
that the school down the street has because you guys
are in a poorer district. And I said, when that
makes no sense. That's and it's not even legal, And
you can't tell me that another school in my same
(18:36):
district is getting different curriculum. The curriculum is supposed to
be paid for by taxes, but these are the things
that you know more unless you are involved, and you're right,
with a two parent working household, it is really hard
for parents to be involved.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
Right, absolutely, And I think you're you're very right in
pointing out the rhetoric and then kind of the narrative
that the right creates around school choice and in public
school system. I mean, I was raised in a single
parent household and I was you know, my mom was
working like two or three jobs, and I was in
the public school system, and really it was kind of
up to me how well I did. It was you know,
(19:12):
the onus was all on me. There wasn't a lot
of oversight from home or from.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
The school I was at. The school I was at.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
Wasn't even nationally ranked, it was not doing well on
test standards, and so that was really kind of again,
like I said, up to me.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
But that and so those.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Situations are are very unfortunate. But I would say, you know,
the biggest issues you mentioned. One thing that you mentioned
was the word safe. You know, as a tax payer,
look like you said, we expect something in exchange for
the taxes that we're paying, something in quality. You know
that in exchange for what we're paying and a lot
(19:49):
of parents, and you know, a lot of folks usually
should feel safe sending our kids to school. But what
the reality is and when I when I go to
college campuses and lecture students on this, it's important when
I talk to them about the importance of debate and skepticism.
The reality is that our country was founded, The United
States was founded on this incredibly high level of skepticism
(20:12):
of the government of the government, and so really we've
kind of lost that skepticism with welfare programs and all
of these public you know, all of these public programs
that have been provided to us. And so in a way,
we really should be very skeptical in all scenarios when
the government says, hey, you know, not just let us
have have your kids for eight hours, but also just
(20:33):
generally when they try to run programs, because it's not
we convince ourselves that now they have our best interests
at heart, But our entire constitution and everything was kind
of written and founded on the idea that actually they don't.
In fact, the restrictions should be on the government because
we don't trust them.
Speaker 3 (20:49):
To have our best interests at heart.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
We are the only ones who can determine what our
interests are and that I think we have lost that,
and I think it's because we don't debate these issues
anymore at the collegiate level or in the academy. We
just kind of assume everything's going to be this way forever.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Let's take a quick commercial break. We'll continue next on
the Tutor Dixon podcast or a Speaking of feeling safe,
this one just totally blows my mind. We've got this
new bill in California that says, if you have a
child that has a two parent custody, you're in a
situation where the parents are divorced or whatever, and one
(21:26):
parent has because half the custody, the other has the
other half custody. One parent is affirming the child's gender.
And I can't even stand that terminology because it just
makes me so crazy to think that a kid. I mean,
then we're talking about any age. You'll be three years
old and the parents like, yeah, the child has decided
(21:46):
to be a different gender. And if that parent goes
to the court and says my child's father or mother
does not affirm the child's gender, that parent can now
in California lose custody. This could be a situation where
the school gets involved and says, hey, we have a
situation where this kid is going home to one parent
(22:09):
and the parent is not affirming the gender the child
has chosen, and instead of the parent being able to
make a decision about their child's health, the quotes can
now say you don't get to see your child anymore.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
So this is actually really terrifying.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
And we have seen this type of policy exists now
for years in countries like Canada, where they have been
actively removing children from households, and you know, in divorce scenarios,
one of the parents doesn't get custody because of the
lack of affirmation of someone's gender identity. And I mean, look,
(22:44):
they already don't even have free speech rights there. They
say that they do, but we know that people get
put in jail and get fined for not using someone's
pronoun because Canada considers it a human rights crisis, and
so there are human rights violation in those situations. But
I think it's when we look at California and some
of these states that are experimenting with these types of policies,
(23:04):
we have to ask ourselves why are they're experimenting with them?
Speaker 3 (23:06):
They're trying to.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
See how much they can get away with, and they
notoriously do this. The left will put out recommendations and
policy recommendations of very far left, very overreaching policies, and
the right will rise up and say no, no, no, no, no,
you cannot do that. That is so unconstitutional, it's so
unfathomable for this country. But what the left accomplishes in
(23:28):
that situation is that they're going to move the Overton
window and they're going to slightly get the conservative movement
to kind of capitulate on something within that, talking about
gender identity, talking about what parents should get control of
the child, which custody of the child. They're going to
get something out of this. So I think it's very
(23:49):
important to us that we actually take very close attention
to what comes out of this. Even if Newsom doesn't
sign the bill into law, what does it mean now
that the idea has been proposed. But of course, this
whole idea of tearing children away from parents in order
to control and manipulate them, this is something we have
(24:09):
seen historically throughout the world. What totalitarian regimes do in
order to gain control over the populace. They turn children
against parents, and so we should be very very suspicious
again of what path this is going to take us down.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
I mean, what path does it take us down? Because
I think we all remember the story of I believe
it was out of Texas, a little boy named James,
whose mother said James was a girl. James was a
twin and the mother said that he was a girl.
The father would videotape the boy saying I don't want
to be a girl. I want to be a boy.
(24:44):
I want to be James. I mean, this whole scenario
is there's a real sickness going on when you have
a little a child in a family who is torn
between two parents, and that the quotes ultimately sided with
my he was forced to go through a gender transition
and take these sterilization hormones and all of these things
(25:09):
that will ultimately a boy who is eight or nine
years old, does he understand that he will never have
an intimate relationship, you will never have children. No, of
course not. You don't understand that when you're that age
and dad is standing up and saying there's something wrong here,
this is not normal, and dad loses rights. I mean
when you say, like this is something that newsom may
(25:31):
or may not sign into law. It's already happening in
communities on a local base, on a local level that
we haven't been able to control. And parents feel like,
how is this happening in the United States of America
where my kid is being taken from me and change.
I mean, it's not reversible. It's so shocking.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
Yeah, it's appalling, And you're right, this is already happening
because you have judges who are basically just determining these
things upon themselves. Well, what happen in California is at
all actually be signed into law and all judges will
be required, you know, by the law. You know, obviously
that's not assuming that there's going to be a bunch
of forthcoming lawsuits against the law itself, which which we
(26:11):
already know and anticipate challenges. But yeah, you do have
a lot of judges kind of going off and just
deciding these things in Texas, of all places, right, Texas,
you would not expect this type of thing to be occurring.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
But that and that was a very early case.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
That was like a couple of years ago, even you know,
it was pretty early on in this discussion with with
what rental rights there are with when it comes to
kids who are being you know, brainwashed into transitioning.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
I think, to be honest, I think you make a
really good point there though, because that did happen in Texas,
and I think sometimes when we talk about this bill
is in California, people go, ah, you know, whatever, it's California.
They're crazy. It's not going to happen in my town,
but it could happen in your town. And what you're
saying is key. There are activist judges across the country
(26:56):
that you don't know. You don't know until you're in
that situation where you're said in front of that judge
and that judge has control over your life, and it
is shocking. And that's why when parents are saying, you know,
I mean, I don't want to rock the boat. I
don't want to be too involved, and we're not saying
you have to be out there picketting outside of school
with signs. But every time you see something that isn't right,
(27:18):
if you speak up, just speaking up, people are less
likely to continue to go forward with it.
Speaker 3 (27:24):
Yeah, absolutely, one hundred percent.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
I always talk to students about how courage is contagious
if everyone just stays silent. That's how they win. You
have to if you just need one person to speak up,
and then everyone in that room will realize that they
kind of all think the same way, and you know,
you're going to get followers. People are going to realize, wait,
I can speak up too. And that's so important is
that even just making a comment, may it may not
seem like a big deal, or may not seem like
(27:47):
you're making.
Speaker 3 (27:47):
A huge impact.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
But if people see you standing up, it's going to
lead to a movement. And that is it may not
be you as a leader, but you speaking up does
make a difference. And so I think that's really important
for parents to recognize. But yeah, you look, you're not
safe anywhere in the country at the end of the
day when it you know, a lot of the schools
we've sued who actively violate students free speech rights are
(28:09):
in red states. We just won against a Texas University
of Houston last year. We're suing Texas State University. Now,
we're suing Oklahoma State University that's in a deep red state.
And we just won against the University of Central Florida
last year. And so that's I mean, it's not really,
you're not really safe because a lot of these there
are little pockets, like you said of activist judges in
(28:29):
certain districts, but also in the academy. These campuses are
very like they're hot spots for far left Marxist ideology.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
Well, how do you spread it unless you go to
the place where it isn't you know? And that's what
I think people have to understand that the only way
you can continue to spread Marxism or communism or just
this radical ideology is to go places where it is
and start to sprinkle it in. And the way they
do it is not, Hey, if you don't do this,
you're wrong, you're a bad person. The way they do
(28:57):
it is if you if you do this, you're loving,
You're welcoming. This is the rape society should be. And
I think that's something that on our side of the
aisle has been we've done it the wrong way. From
the standpoint of people think that if they come to
a right of center, then they have to condemn people,
and so you have to live the way we live,
or you're a bad person. Whereas if you live, if
(29:19):
you live a lifestyle that is right of center, you're
probably going to have a pretty happy life, but we
don't tell people that.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
It's. Like you said, they have to.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
People have to pay close attention to this because it
will sneak up on you. And if you're not paying attention,
if you're not speaking out about it, it can.
Speaker 3 (29:39):
You'll find yourself.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
It's likely these days you could find yourself in a
situation where you are in front of a judge who's
going to rule against you, in a situation that just
seems completely crazy and unreal, like something out.
Speaker 3 (29:51):
Of a dream.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
And you know, these parents who've gone through this stuff
definitely kind of feel that way.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
Well. I think as we've seen some of these people
that have been political activists on our side get these
massive sentences that just seem that they're a little out
of sync with what they've done. I mean, I think
that's just the beginning. And I think that as much
as people might say, well that's not me, you don't
know what will be you, I think that's your point.
(30:18):
You never know when they're going to call you ahead
of in front of a judge and say, hey, guess
what you had wrong? Think what's that right?
Speaker 2 (30:27):
And we're seeing evidence now that this this leftism, this
Marxist ideology is trying to infiltrate law schools. They are
trying to infiltrate, you know, the judicial system, trying to
manipulate it. This what you just mentioned goes back to
an earlier question. I didn't get a chance to answer
because I was I went off on one of my
tangents per usual, but I actually you know, you asked, what's.
Speaker 3 (30:51):
The goal here? What's the ultimate goal?
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Right? And it's it's to so for they want to
consolidate power. This is and the when you look at
totalitarian regime and how they operate. They can't just have
power of the government. They have to have power because
because for them, it's a zero sum game. If you're
pushing back at any level, it's power that they don't
have if you're not relinquishing somewhere. So they have to
(31:15):
have complete and utter control over your life. And it's
not just in order to maintain that power. And that's
how they kind of view this. That's how Marxism views
the world. They cannot they cannot operate in a world.
You can look at the communist regimes and see clear
examples of this. They can't have that power if you're
over here, you know, going on the school board or
(31:36):
shouting at the school board about the types of books
that are in your you know, in front of your
students that exhibit pornography. They can't have that power if
you have people pushing back, so by getting into the judiciary,
by getting into the politics, trying to infiltrate everything as
much as possible in order to control the way of thinking.
You know, this is where the academy comes in once again,
(31:58):
trying to control the way people think in education. It's
that's what ultimately the goal is here. That's why separating
kids from parents is so such a vital part of
their plan. And whether you have look, we don't have
to go into conspiracy theories. I can say that literally
everyone is in on this. It's that you have a
lot of folks who genuinely believe in this types of
(32:18):
social justice rhetoric, the climate change rietoric, a lot of
the far left rhetoric that exists. They really do believe
that this country is racist, systemically racist. But you have
there are people at the top who are pulling a
lot of these strings, like George Soros, who are like
pushing for prosecutors who won't who won't prosecute criminals, you know,
to win elections. But you I think it's just important
(32:40):
to recognize that all of this is feeding into a
common goal, which is the consolidation of power.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
And it's even if we are.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
All going to give each other the benefit of the
ballt and say, obviously not everyone's kind of bought into
that aspect.
Speaker 3 (32:53):
They're still doing the bidding.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
They're still trying to indoctrinate your kids, they're still trying
to get your get parents to lose custody in order
to manipulate the minds of younger generations to like you
were saying earlier, when you get these when you get
these rulings out of the judiciary that are just so
extreme against people for having wrong think, for participating in
(33:18):
things that the left doesn't agree with, then it's what
else could you interpret it as as if not a warning?
Speaker 1 (33:26):
If not, we've been very spoiled up until this point.
I mean, we really hadn't ever seen this. It was
kind of you know, the the two parties in government
were not so different that people could just still say, Okay,
well I'm on this side, I'm on that side. I
can accept that there's another side things have really changed
in the past six or seven years. And I would
(33:48):
say things started changing when Obama became president and there
started to be a real divide because he started to
go after the police. He started to essentially say there's
a different side and against you, and that just that
really started to spread, I believe at that point, and
I think that the other side would blame Trump, But
(34:09):
I got to say, if we go a little bit
farther back, we would see where this began and where
these organizations started to pop up. And I just think
that things in our lives have changed to a point
where we can't be as spoiled, we can't be as
as laid back about the country as we were, and
people just need to get involved and make sure that
we preserve the American values that we've always had. Where
(34:32):
can people find more information about Speech First and what
you're doing.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
Yeah, absolutely so. Speech First dot org is our website.
You can go on there. We also, you know, we
have a podcast, well said, you can kind of queue
up to date with the folks that I interview in
higher ed and kind of who are working in that
space of free speech. But additionally, you know, you can
find us on Twitter, social media speech.
Speaker 3 (34:51):
First, you can find me Sherise Trump.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
It's you know, just type in my name on Twitter
and you can you can find my account. But if
you want to sign up for our emails, you can
go out our website and so to either become a
member or just to receive regular emails for our updates.
You can also press donate. You know, we do see
a lot of universities that violate students free speech rights,
and litigation is something that is.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
Very costly but very very effective.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
So you know, that's something that I always encourage if
you can support wherever you can that that's very helpful
for us getting the word out. And you know, it's
been great being on here with you, tutor. I think
there's we talked so much about things that could easily
be teased out into their.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
Own podcasts, so into their own episodes. But it's great.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
Yeah, I think something you just said is incredibly key
because oftentimes people go, well, gosh, I don't want to
get involved. I don't know how to get involved. And
if you don't want to publicly put your face to
something like this, then and go out there and talk
and fight yourself. These lawsuits are so important because they
(35:50):
are protecting what we have always known as our country.
And this is at the university level. And I always
say to people, you have a lot of control over
K through twelve. Even though we see this stuff going
on in K through twelve, we as parents still have
that ability to have kids come home, talk about your day.
I mean, we had somebody on here one day that
said that we are now seeing that parents are having
(36:12):
less than fifteen minutes of meaningful conversation a week with
their kids. Don't let that happen. Come home every day,
talk about what happened at school, ask about the teachers,
ask those things. But K through twelve you still have
a lot of influence to have your family values there.
When your kids go to college, that's when you're not
there every day. You're not having those meaningful conversations because
you just you just can't. You're just not there. And
(36:34):
so that's when a company, on an organization like Speech
First is so important. So if you can make that donation,
just know that that's going to protect our future, to
protect our children, to protect your children and your grandchildren
and the future of this country. So Charies, thank you
so much for being on today and thank you for
sharing what you guys do.
Speaker 3 (36:51):
Absolutely, thanks so much for having.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
Me, absolutely, and thank you all for joining us on
the Tutor Dixon Podcast. For this episode and others, go
to Tudor dixonpodcast dot com. You can subscribe right there,
or check out the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your podcasts and join us next time on
the Tutor Dixon Podcast. Have a blessed day,
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show News
Hosts And Creators
Clay Travis
Buck Sexton
Show Links
WebsiteNewsletterPopular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!