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Aug. 25, 2023 - Rubin Report - Dave Rubin
27:18
‘Rich Dad, Poor Dad’ Author Banned? | Robert Kiyosaki & Ann Atkinson | POLITICS | Rubin Report
Participants
Main voices
a
ann atkinson
10:43
d
dave rubin
07:06
r
robert kiyosaki
09:05
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Speaker Time Text
robert kiyosaki
Well, I think when the rumor broke that we were going to do something bigger, and I started hearing rumblings, and then these 39 professors attacked.
This was prior to the event, and then we started hearing rumors that the students were intimidated and threatened.
If you show up at that event, you know, you might not get that grade you want.
And so it was intimidation, it was muscle, it was everything we don't stand for.
And these, I mean, I'm not fond of education as you may know from my history.
I learned nothing about money at school.
I had to learn it from my rich dad who was a high school dropout.
unidentified
But anyway, it was horrifying.
robert kiyosaki
And I said to Anna, I told you this would happen.
But David, it got worse.
dave rubin
I'm Dave Rubin and joining me today is investor, entrepreneur, and author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad,
former Rubin Report guest Robert Kiyosaki, and free speech advocate and former executive,
I put emphasis on former, former executive director of the Lewis Center at Arizona State University
and Atkinson.
Robert and Anne, welcome to the Rubin Report.
robert kiyosaki
Thank you.
ann atkinson
Thank you very much.
dave rubin
Robert, I'm going to start with you because I put emphasis on former in Anne's intro, but sort of you coming to ASU is what caused the former part in her intro.
So why don't you set us up as to why you guys are here together, and then Anne, we'll get to your involvement in this whole thing.
robert kiyosaki
Well, let me go way back in time.
In 1965, I read this book here, The Communist Manifesto.
I went to military school.
I'm a ring knocker.
And then I went to Vietnam as a marine pilot.
I flew these babies in Vietnam.
You know, shot a lot of communists out there.
And then I came walking home, you know, Johnny comes marching home again, hurrah, hurrah.
I got spit on and hit with eggs at Norton Air Force Base just north of San Francisco.
Interesting, isn't it?
And I'm afraid what's happened to America is we have gone Marxist.
And so when Ann invited me to Arizona State University, which is the largest university in America, I said, no way, I'm not going.
Just because I had such a bad experience at the University of Hawaii, I got spit on there too.
I was in the MBA program.
And I dropped out.
So when Ann asked me, would you mind teaching at ASU?
I said, I'd rather go back to Vietnam and shoot people.
It's more honest.
You know what I mean?
I'm a sick Marine.
You guys understand that.
And so she said, I promise you, I promise I'll protect you.
And she did.
She's not just a Lewis Center, it's the Barrett's Honors College.
Dave, these were the brightest of the brightest.
You know, people I never hung out with.
That's cool.
And it was a fabulous, it was all an entrepreneurship.
I brought my oil guy in, my cattle guy, my 4-1, I don't do a 4-1 case, but I brought my stock guy in and all this stuff.
It was fabulous, and then Ann says, well, let's do it again.
I'm going, okay, she sucked me in.
So that was last summer, this, and so December, I mean, February, we did an event called Health, Wealth, and Happiness on Arizona State Campus University.
Health, wealth, happiness, featuring Dennis Prager and, unfortunately, Charlie Kirk, who we, as a marine pilot would say, we drew a lot of fire.
And these woke professors, 39 of them, came after us.
And Dave, we're still fighting.
That was last February.
We're at the Arizona State Legislature.
They're taking action against these 39 professors for intimidation threats.
I can't believe how Marxist and woke they've gotten.
And Anne got fired because of it.
unidentified
Right.
dave rubin
I can't believe it.
So Robert, you called me a couple weeks ago and said, have you heard about this story?
I started doing some Googling.
It really was sort of blowing up in Arizona, but hasn't kind of made it national.
That's why I wanted to talk to you guys about this.
Because first off, this one, everyone knows me in free speech, but then this one felt personal because Robert, we're friends.
And then you're on stage with two of my other buddies, Dennis, who's become like a An uncle to me and Charlie, who's a good buddy of mine.
These are not haters.
These are not mean, evil people.
And you're talking about success and wealth and happiness, all of these things.
These are not far-right, crazy, mean, racist things.
So Anne, can you explain a bit about why you invited them and then what the pushback was that kind of led to the whole brouhaha and now how it's gotten involved with the state legislature even?
ann atkinson
Yes, Dave, I will.
So for the last two years, I've been the Executive Director of the T.W.
Lewis Center for Personal Development, which is a center of Barrett, the Honors College at Arizona State.
Barrett has 7,000 students, and the purpose of the Lewis Center was to teach those students about entrepreneurship, career success, happiness, personal finance, and meaning, but also to teach the traditional American values of personal responsibility, Hard work, civic duty, faith, family, and community service.
So in my role as Executive Director, we put on, and I oversaw, programming for the students.
And in the last two years, we had nearly 150 programs.
This was one of them.
The topics of health, wealth, and happiness were directly aligned with the intent of the Lewis Center, which was established by ASU and its Honors College.
So with this event, we decided to have A normal Lewis Hunter speaker program, but to make it available to the public.
The Lewis Center is not a political center.
This was not even a political program.
But health, wealth, and happiness led to censorship, condemnation, and chillings.
And ultimately, my firing and the firing of the person for the event venue who put this on on our behalf.
dave rubin
Okay, so, Robert, you guys show up to the event.
It's a public event at the school.
When did you realize that there were going to be some problems?
Were they shouting you down at the beginning of the event?
Were there protests beforehand?
When did it sort of escalate into something other than just the usual stuff that happens on college campuses?
robert kiyosaki
Well, I think when the rumor broke that we were going to do something bigger, And I started hearing rumblings, and then these 39 professors attacked.
This was prior to the event, and then we started hearing rumors that the students were intimidated and threatened.
If you show up at that event, you know, you might not get that grade you want.
And so it was intimidation, it was muscle, it was everything we don't stand for.
And these, I mean, I'm not fond of education, as you may know from my history.
I learned nothing about money at school.
I had to learn it from my rich dad, who was a high school dropout.
unidentified
But anyway, it was horrifying.
robert kiyosaki
And I said to Anna, I told you this would happen.
But David, it got worse.
And these guys, there's a saying that the Japanese, Chinese, and any educated person says, if you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.
Well, these dumbass 39 professors keep digging, and they're still digging.
And the Arizona Senate is now doing an investigation into them, and the head of the Senate said there will be people being fired.
There's nothing more terrifying to a professor, like my poor dad, than being fired.
dave rubin
Okay, so Anne, these 39 professors, did they show up to the event?
I mean, they were telling their kids, in essence, before the event, do not show up or it's gonna hurt your grade.
And do you have records of this kind of stuff?
ann atkinson
I have records of everything.
The 39 out of the 47 honors faculty ran this national condemnation campaign, which started with their petition that called Dennis Prager and Charlie Kirk white nationalist provocateurs, bigoted.
Extreme anti-intellectual, anti-democratic purveyors of hate who've publicly attacked women, people of color, the LGBTQ community, and so forth.
And then Robert was accused of being dangerous because he teaches about debt.
unidentified
So it didn't... About debt!
dave rubin
You are dangerous to debt, Robert!
robert kiyosaki
I say debt and taxes make the rich richer.
You know, I don't pay tax like Donald Trump.
We're real estate guys.
The teachers went nuts.
ann atkinson
So this didn't end though with the petition to their deans.
The professors went into their classroom where they teach mandatory honors classes to freshmen to condemn our program, our speakers, our donors, and the leadership and staff of the Lewis Center.
The professors used ASU resources, computers, equipment, and their official capacity to do so.
Which was which leads to state action.
That is a state actionable offense.
The professors went campus wide outside of the Honors College for help to drive a mission to condemn all of those parties.
And then they went further on a national condemnation campaign, painting this and labeling this as hate speech.
dave rubin
OK, so Robert, I hate to tell you that when you called me about this, I think I said to you on the phone, I'm not surprised, right?
Like, there's nothing that would surprise me about any sane person showing up to a university and being told that they were evil and all that stuff.
Right, right.
Most people to some extent still, is how much of this comes from faculty.
Because I think most people are used to seeing the kids go crazy now.
Like everyone's kind of used to blue haired students screaming somebody down.
But Anne, what you're connecting to this to is the faculty.
So, I guess from here, how did you end up as former director?
And then we'll go from there.
ann atkinson
Yes.
And I'll add, Dave, it's not just the faculty, the deans censored speech.
The deans of my college spent censored speech.
They told me Robert Kiyosaki, Dennis Prager, and Dr. Radha Gopalan, who were on the panel, were only to talk about health, wealth, and happiness.
And they were not to speak about higher education or anything that could be deemed political or used as a political platform.
So in a university that's celebrated for its free speech policies, College deans undermine that by saying what speech was allowed and what speech wasn't allowed.
Further, the deans pulled down all of the marketing from the walls around the Barrett Honors College complex, citing it was offending the faculty.
And that's why.
They discriminated against our speech and they allowed opposing faculty to market an opposition event that painted our event as dangerous hate speech.
dave rubin
So it was faculty and administration, but how does that get to you being former director of the center?
ann atkinson
Yes.
Well, this was the perfect opportunity for the new dean at Barrett, the honors college to eradicate the values that are evidently no longer allowed at the college.
So after the faculty attacked our donor, Tom Lewis, our main donor and our other donors, the Lewis center, the, after the Barrett deans mishandled the situation, Our main donor, Mr. Tom Lewis, who's donated millions of dollars to Arizona State over the last two decades, left.
The faculty scared him out.
So I brought in new diversified donor funding to keep the intent of the Lewis Center going, which, back to the first part of our conversation, included things like personal responsibility, hard work, faith, family, community service.
The new dean took this opportunity to dismantle a gem at the Honors College, and she said, the funding is gone, therefore we need to fire you.
Yet, and that between the time when Tom Lewis notified the college he would be terminating and the time that actually took effect, I brought in new diversified donor funding.
The dean turned it down.
So ASU is stuck firmly to the position on this that we lost donor funding.
Therefore, my position as executive director goes with it, but they're not saying that the dean explicitly turns down new funding.
She didn't ask, who are the donors?
Let's have a conversation, meet with the ASU foundation.
She was purely not interested.
She fired me effective June 30 when Tom Lewis's funding ended and dismantled a gem at ASU's Honors College and eradicated these values that are obviously no longer aligned with the college.
dave rubin
Yeah, wow.
I mean, this really does sound like another version of what happened to Brett Weinstein up at Evergreen and has happened to a whole bunch of other professors and faculty at colleges across the country.
Robert, did anything happen at the event?
I mean, so you guys do the event.
I mean, were kids outraged?
Did anyone say anything that was untoward?
Did you scare anybody with talk of debt?
robert kiyosaki
Well, Dave, the problem was the students loved us.
You know, Joe was the students protesting.
These students showed up in mass, they were happy.
They sent all their, it turned out great because Carrie Lake took, you know, she was ran for governor.
She had the same ballot box boogie that Trump has, you know.
dave rubin
Different topic, different topic.
robert kiyosaki
I know.
But anyway, so Carrie stepped up and it was an overwhelming success because the community stepped up.
And again, I'll reiterate this.
I flew this for the U.S.
Marine Corps.
I'm not the brightest guy on earth.
They said, don't be political.
So I showed up in my Marine flight jacket, and I held this book up for all the teachers.
And I said, you guys should read this book and find out who you are.
So it went off the rails from there, Dave.
dave rubin
Anne, can you tell me a little bit more about the teachers?
I mean, are these across disciplines?
Did you have a sense of what all their political leanings were?
Have any of them now realizing that this is becoming a story?
Have any of them retracted some of the things they've said or anything like that?
ann atkinson
Well, certainly the teacher who had multiple students provide testimonies to the joint legislative session, confirming that she used her classroom to tell them not to attend the program, She's put out a public statement denying it, but she doesn't know there are recordings from within her classrooms that confirm the opposite of what she's denied.
dave rubin
She might know that now!
ann atkinson
Look, the teachers study all sorts of topics.
Those that are leading this condemnation effort, they study witchcraft, the practice teaching of witchcraft.
Gender theory, settler colonialism, gun culture.
But look, my view is they have the right to do that.
If they want to have an event on witchcraft and students want to attend, I support that.
I think our programs are slightly better attended, but I think we all have a place in higher education to provide something different.
So the professors have a range of backgrounds.
They teach freshmen.
They're technically lecturers, so they're not full professors at ASU.
But they have just collectively shamed this speech, health, wealth, and happiness, and the values of the Lewis Center as hateful and dangerous.
dave rubin
And so what exactly is going on now with the state legislature related to all this?
Because obviously the school gets state funding.
I'm sure there's all sorts of connections between the school and the state.
ann atkinson
That's right.
Well, it's really unfortunate what is needed to happen.
As I've been taking the last several months to address these concerns internally, I've gone through all the proper ASU channels, I even went to the president of the university and the entire board of regents with a summary of basically what I testified about in our hearing this week.
The university told me, we allowed the speakers, but you then have to take the consequences.
And when I addressed the toxicity that's come around Barrett since our new dean came on board a year ago, they said it was my fault for inviting the speakers.
They didn't say it's a weak leader that brought with her a vacuum to the Honors College that allowed the faculty to run rampant.
So I exhausted all options to address things internally with my alma mater.
And unfortunately, it's taking legislative action.
So to answer your question, Dave, there was an ad hoc joint session between the Arizona State Senate and House of Representatives this Tuesday, July 18th.
And they investigated this free speech crisis at ASU.
Robert was there for the whole thing.
I testified, another professor, Dr. Owen Anderson testified in support of free speech.
Seth Leibson testified and Dennis Prager even came here from California to testify in his defense.
So we had this ad hoc hearing, a five and a half hour long hearing to present the facts.
ASU is still denying that there was any wrongdoing.
I think generally ASU has great free speech policies and I keep saying we have one of the most free speech presidents in the pro free speech presidents in the country.
But all of this is undermining those policies.
So what happens next?
The Senate Judiciary Committee in the state of Arizona is taking this up.
They have ordered a 60-day deadline for Arizona State to report on the information presented, and they'll determine next steps upon receiving that report in 60 days.
dave rubin
Robert, as the sort of outsider here, what do you want to happen?
Because I sense a little bit of kind of schadenfreude with you on this.
It's like, I know you well enough.
You don't think that a kid needs the four-year education and the debt and all of that stuff to become successful.
So I can sense in a certain way, you're sort of like, well, of course this happens.
This is the ridiculous way that the American education system works or does not work.
robert kiyosaki
Well, the teachers who teach witchcraft, they didn't show up because they couldn't park their Brumson.
Dave, now you know why I get kicked out of school, because I'm a wise-ass.
dave rubin
You can't go after witches, man.
That's the line.
robert kiyosaki
It's dangerous.
Dave, this is the story of Rich Dad, Poor Dad, magnified a thousand percent.
My poor dad was a very, very good man, but at the core a Marxist.
And they're not bad people.
I support the freedom to choose.
But they don't know they are.
They don't know there are.
And they talk about, you know, America was founded not in 1619, like the New York Times wants us to believe.
America was founded in 1773.
It's called the Boston Tea Party.
You know, and I fight for freedom of taxes, and Marx says a progressive income tax is essential for the spread of communism.
So when you start, if you read this book here, You know, I wrote this book here in counter to it, it's called The Capitalist Manifesto, because I am a U.S.
Marine, I'm an academy graduate, and I fight for the freedom of principle.
I don't fight for people, I fight for principle, and allow us our freedom of speech.
dave rubin
Well, Ann, clearly you could see why a guy like him would be considered controversial at Arizona State.
You know, guys, as a total sidebar, you will love this.
About seven years ago, I spoke at Arizona State University with Michael Shermer, who you might know from Skeptic magazine.
And at the end of all my talks, I always say to the audience, if you disagree with me, you can come up and ask questions first.
And as a joke at the beginning of the talk, I said, you know, how many liberals are here?
How many conservatives are here?
I said, by raise of hands, how many Nazis are here?
And one woman raised her hand in the back and said she was a Nazi.
So I said at the end during the Q&A, if you don't shout me down, you can ask the first question.
It turned out she was actually a trans-Nazi.
Yes, believe it or not, a trans-Nazi.
And she didn't believe that the gas chambers existed and a whole bunch of other stuff.
And Michael Shermer, who debunks these things, did.
And we had an incredible event on free speech where we debated things.
And I don't know that we changed the trans Nazis mind, but that's my memory of Arizona state.
So that's why this is so disappointing.
So, so Ann, what, what do you want to happen now?
I mean, I suppose you want, do you, do you want these professors to be let go?
I mean, do you want your job back?
ann atkinson
Well, I don't want my job back.
I've already explored that with, with university leadership.
I'm, I'm clearly not welcome.
I certainly at Barrett, the honors college, Look, ASU, the world is watching.
This has become a national story.
ASU is an example in free speech, and they need to make it clear what they will and won't tolerate.
Right now, ASU is sending a message to the faculty majority that it's okay to bully, suppress, intimidate, and censor speech.
They're sending a message to people like me, who run centers or programs in the ideological minority, that you better not speak up because you will risk condemnation.
Retaliation and you probably will lose your job.
So I really I've been trying to appeal to the better people in ASU to take action to actually investigate.
But yet in these months, no one has asked me once for more information for a conversation where they can ask questions.
So I'm hoping that ASU will step in, but it might take action from the Arizona State Legislature.
It might take action from the Arizona Board of Regents, but this simply is a disgrace to one of the great universities in our country.
dave rubin
Anne, are you getting, I think you sort of just answered this, but I know when Brett was dealing with all of the craziness at Evergreen, he kept telling me privately how so many professors were supporting him privately, but nobody would step up and say anything publicly.
I assume you're getting some version of that.
I think you kind of alluded to that.
ann atkinson
Exactly.
And they're afraid to speak out in this.
It's not just the professors.
Actually, more students have reached out to me than professors, and the students say, look, I want to go meet with the dean, but I'm afraid I'm going to risk my grades or my living arrangements or have some retaliation if I do so.
The professors created a culture of fear around this event because they painted it as a white supremacy event.
unidentified
Keep in mind, Robert Kiyosaki is now remarrying.
ann atkinson
Dennis Prager is a religious Jew.
Dr. Radhika Palan was raised in Sri Lanka, and yet I had to defend Comparisons to the KKK in a meeting with my dean.
The events operations manager who was fired at the venue was asked by the executive director of ASU Gammage, why did you allow a white supremacist on our stage?
So they're silencing the students with this climate of fear.
So it's the students that are really the concerning people that have been reaching out in droves to express their support for this, but their fear of retribution.
dave rubin
So, Robert, I know as a capitalist you like to create rather than destroy.
You've got a couple bucks.
What about creating a new free speech center at a more free speech friendly college?
We've got a couple of them here in Florida, by the way.
robert kiyosaki
You're reading my mind, David.
You're reading my mind.
You know, there was an old movie about Torah, Torah, Torah, about my ancestors.
I was on the American side.
They attacked Pearl Harbor.
And then this Japanese admiral, Yamato, after he bombed Pearl Harbor, he says, I think we just pissed off the Americans.
And now these teachers have pissed me off.
unidentified
Yeah.
robert kiyosaki
So I'm going to come after him.
dave rubin
Yeah, I mean, you just got to fight back.
Well, Anne, as I said to you right before we started, you know, I've been through this conversation, some version of it many times on my show.
Some people don't expect to be in the fight.
Some people don't want to be in the fight, and they end up in it anyway.
I sense you're ready to be in it, and you're going to see this thing through, huh?
ann atkinson
I am fully immersed and fully committed to supporting an environment that really allows free speech for all viewpoints.
I'll speak with other media.
I will continue this mission until there's a resolution.
I hope you can see I'm not criticizing ASU.
I'm simply highlighting gross undermining of these policies that suppresses so many people in the community.
So if I have a role to play in this, I'm game.
dave rubin
Where can we point people to if they want more information on what's going on or maybe how they can help, that sort of thing?
ann atkinson
Sure thing.
I'm on Instagram, LinkedIn.
You can email contactannatkinson at gmail.com.
I don't yet have fancy media contacts, but I suppose maybe we'll set something up.
dave rubin
Okay, we'll post some links down below.
And Robert, what's next on your freedom-fighting frontier?
robert kiyosaki
Well, like I said, I'm going to promote this book even more, like I did at ASU.
I should, people should read this book.
Do you know what I mean?
dave rubin
You're selling more communist manifestos than anybody.
It's really ironic.
robert kiyosaki
I know.
I'm an author, you know, but if I could write a book this powerful, I'd be proud of myself.
But this is, it's written in 1848, David.
It's more true today than ever before.
And what this book says that communism would take over America in two stages.
The first stage happened in 1930, when Columbia University, where Dennis Prager went to school, they invited in professors from the Communist League of Germany.
And so these communists came into Columbia University in 1930, and from there, rioting spread to schools all across the country.
So when I was at school, I went to the academy, Kings Point Merchant Marine Academy, there was rioting at Columbia University.
And then there was Kent State and all that and, you know, Berkeley.
And rioting has spread across the country.
Unfortunately, those students are now professors.
You know, so I jokingly say that when I was standing, I came back to Norton Air Force Base, I flew in from Vietnam, I brought my 16 men home, all alive.
I'm getting hit on, spit on, hit with eggs and all this stuff.
And I jokingly say, because as you may guess, most of my audience is apparently conservative.
I certainly say, you know, I look at those audience of, you know, students my age, the hippie generation, the Woodstock generation, throwing eggs at me.
I said, I swear to God, that was Nancy Pelosi on the Chuck show.
But I think they became our leaders, David.
Does that make sense to you?
dave rubin
No, it does make sense.
We clearly see what the universities have done from way back then to exactly right now, which is the whole point of the book that you're holding that, to be clear, you did not write, but you're promoting it for all the wrong reasons.
I get why.
Now promote your own book so that people understand the antidote to that lunacy.
robert kiyosaki
Well, I just wrote this.
This is how big it had to be, just to respond at how communism, exactly as this book said, it could come in two stages.
He predicted it.
Mark was of 1848.
The second was when the ballot boxes were taken from Donald Trump, who was my friend of mine, and Trump and I wrote two books together.
So, our freedom was being taken away, and that's what concerns me, David.
dave rubin
Well, I think we just got another great ally in the fight, my friend, because Anne is with us now.
And this is just the beginning.
I'll stay on top of this story.
And you guys are welcome back anytime.
robert kiyosaki
Thank you.
My story is not about people.
It's about principles.
Let's fight for our principles.
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