Bruce Gilley of Portland State University

Bring a gun to a knife fight: Bruce Gilley, the Portland State University political scientist professor who was vilified, blacklisted, and threatened with death after writing a paper arguing that western colonialism was not all evil, that it also brought benefits to third world nations, has now taken a job as a scholar in residence at New College in Florida.

Left-leaning scholars have shown active disdain for both Gilley and New College, the latter of which is in the process of being remade from a poorly ranked campus heavily focused on social justice and critical race theory into one that prioritizes a classical liberal education.

“What they are doing there is of global significance, because this is a public university, it’s where the clearest democratic fight is,” Gilley told The College Fix in a telephone interview Friday discussing his new post. In a piece for the American Conservative, Gilley explained further: “New College is the first Reconquista of a publicly-funded venue. …Taking back power from the academic mullahs who have turned higher education in the West into little more than a madrassa system of leftist thought depends on storming the public institutions, not fleeing from them.”

Gilley’s paper on colonialism had made this quite reasonable historical statement:

Research …often finds that at least some if not many or most episodes of Western colonialism were a net benefit…Such works have found evidence for significant social, economic and political gains under colonialism: expanded education, improved public health, the abolition of slavery, widened employment opportunities, improved administration, the creation of basic infrastructure, female rights, enfranchisement of untouchable or historically excluded communities, fair taxation, access to capital, the generation of historical and cultural knowledge, and national identify formation, to mention just a few dimensions.

Our so-called academic community then responded as you would expect. It put together an international campaign to slander Gilley and his work, and applied enough pressure to the journal that published it (including those death threats) to force the journal to withdraw Gilley’s paper. At the same time the communication manager for the university’s Division of Equity and Inclusion office blacklisted him because he had the nerve to tweet “all men are created equal” in an internal college X discussion group.

Gilley responded by suing both the university and that individual. The college immediately backed down, issuing an apologic letter, while at the same time that individual conveniently retired. The lawsuit is still pending, as Gilley has no intention of backing down.

Gilley’s willingness to fight is now illustrated by his move to New College, which is a publicly funded college and under pressure from Governor Ron DeSantis is being reshaped from a leftist indoctrination outlet to an old-fashioned academic institution.

…left-leaning professors have resigned en masse, the board abolished its gender studies department and is building back up its athletics department, and is also working to enroll more male students to balance out a gender population disparity, The College Fix has reported.

But the heart of the changes at New College are focused on academics, including refreshing its honors college with a Great Books curriculum announced in January. Several contrarian thinkers in addition to Gilley have also been tapped as presidential scholars in residence, including renowned literary theorist Stanley Fish.

Both Gilley and Florida are demonstrating how to fight this battle against the intolerant left. You don’t back down, you demand corrections, and then you show no fear when your actions cause leftists to explode in rage and anger. And then you quickly replace them, expressly because they have exhibited a childish and emotional intolerance.

The job of parents and high school students now is to go to colleges like New College, to reward them for demanding high standards. If the demand for such universities grows, it will encourage other colleges to do as New College has. We might then actually begin to see a rebalancing of academia away from the leftist monolith that now controls it.