From “The Seven Mountains Mandate: Exposing the Dangerous Plan to Christianize America and Destroy Democracy” by Matthew Boedy
Turning Point learned that pedagogy from a small private college in Michigan. For decades, Hillsdale College stood as the quintessential example of the parallel Christian education institution. It has long refused federal students loans because of the strings attached. But in the last decade or so, Hillsdale has created a network of private schools using its K-12 curriculum and has aimed to partner with public charter schools and districts. Hillsdale’s map of member schools lists more than twenty schools in fourteen states as of March 2024. In 2023, Republican South Dakota governor Kristi Noem consulted with Hillsdale faculty when setting new state standards for social studies curriculum. In Florida, Republican governor Ron DeSantis referenced Hillsdale as he boasted of overhauling the state’s education system. Likewise, Tennessee’s GOP governor has “courted” Hillsdale and its curriculum that emphasizes “American’s strength rather than its shortcomings.”
To spread their doctrine to the general public, Hillsdale offers free online courses to all who want them. These courses mirror the curriculum sent to school districts, though they end with no actual college credit. There are literature courses on Jane Austen, Mark Twain, and “the great books” of the Western tradition. Courses on modern politics include one on the “decline” of American citizenship that claims to teach how “the disappearance of sovereign borders” and “the growth of the deep state” help to form a “global government.” The course, “The American Left: From Liberalism to Despotism” claims to teach the “philosophical origins of America’s radical movements and how they have overtaken America’s institutions.” The trailer video for a course on civil rights in American history references the 2020 protests in response to the murder of George Floyd through images of burning cars and American flags. A narrator speaking over those images says in the beginning of the video that the claim America is “infected with systemic anti-black racism is a lie.” Contrasting those images with video of Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights era, the video argues that “identity politics” is a danger to freedom and the rights gained during that time. The video says that the educational system in America should “do justice” to the nation’s past and teach it to emphasize our common humanity, not racial differences.
Kirk learned the Hillsdale model directly from Hillsdale’s president, Larry Arnn, as the two served together on the short-lived 1776 Commission, which began in the last months of the first Trump administration.