To call former New York University professor Michael Rectenwald “controversial” would be an understatement. The self-identified communist got himself booted from NYU for tweeting against trigger warnings, safe spaces, political bias, and various other controversial issues, under the moniker of “Deplorable NYU Prof.” Rectenwald left the university with a golden parachute, the result of a legal settlement, and sailed off into retirement.

The former professor subsequently wrote a couple of books, grew restless, and set off to “cause more trouble.” And hoo boy, did he pick a hot topic with which to do so.

As reported by Just the News, Rectenwald is now searching for fellow academics to join him in a new venture, educational startup American Scholars, which is scheduled to launch this summer — and will take dead aim at the lies of so-called “critical race theory.”

‘Deplorable’ professor creates ‘anti-indoctrination mill’ with new education startup #JustTheNews @gregpiper https://t.co/diysoY8i6D

— Just the News (@JustTheNews) May 4, 2021

In an exclusive interview with Just the News on Monday, Rectenwald said American Scholars will “challenge the ideologies that are being purveyed” in mainstream schools, including critical race theory, postmodernism, and socialism.” The goal is to prepare students for the “political outlook” they are likely to face in college, Rectenwald added.

A “rudimentary” website went live on Monday as well, which will feature prerecorded “anytime lessons” for students of all ages, with a focus on supporting homeschooling, college preparation, and adult education.

“LIBERTY IS HERE,” the website proclaims:

American Scholars is an online education platform with any-time, interactive, and outcome-based lessons provided by leading scholars that will equip you with the knowledge to defend and preserve America’s history, constitutional rights, and financial future.

Subject areas include economics, business, history, philosophy, and more.

While the modules will be “high tech,” interactive, and “very entertaining,” Rectenwald told Just the News, they will be distinct from online educational services like PragerU because “actual scholars” will teach them — including him.

“Over the next few days,” he said, he plans to start recruiting higher-level academics tasked with creating departments. He’d like to land a few “academic stars,” he added, who can attract wider attention for recruiting less visible positions teaching younger children.

One such “academic star” he’d “love to have come on” is best-selling author and University of Toronto psychologist Jordan Peterson, but he said that might be tough due to Peterson’s ongoing health problems.

Rectenwald is becoming one of those “academic stars” in his own right. Writing for the Mises Institute, last week, under the headline Vengeance and Sacrifice: Whiteness as Scapegoat in Critical Race Theory and Critical Whiteness Studies, he teed off on CRT:

The ideas of critical race theory and critical white studies shield a ruling elite from vengeance by attempting to make the mass of white people the scapegoat for their own crimes.

The usual criticisms of critical race theory (CRT) have become patent and cliché by now. CRT essentializes race and those within races, figuring all white people as racist and all black people oppressed.

It treats people not as individuals with individual motives and goals but strictly as members of their racial group. It denies individual agency to the very people it aims to liberate.

“It denies individual agency to the very people it aims to liberate,” Rectenwald stressed. Sound familiar? It should; that’s exactly what today’s Democrat Party has become.

The ideas of critical race theory and critical white studies shield a ruling elite from vengeance by attempting to make the mass of white people the scapegoat for their own crimes. | Michael Rectenwald @TheAntiPCProfhttps://t.co/LwGz5vdxru

— Mises Institute (@mises) April 29, 2021

Rectenwald might be a “self-identified communist,” but in terms of understanding what’s happening to America’s kids in public and private education under the guise of “equality” — er — “equity,” the Black Lives Matter narrative, and the vile lie that America is inherently a “systemically-racist country,” the “deplorable prof” get it as well as anyone.

Characterizing the American educational system as “very difficult terrain for anyone who’s a political outsider […] even K-12 can be an indoctrination mill,” Rectenwald said, and “[American Scholars is] an anti-indoctrination mill.”

Amen to “anti-indoctrination.” “Deplorable,” or not. 

American Scholars will run on a subscription model, according to Just the News, ranging between $30-80 a month for different levels and amounts of educational content. The startup isn’t planning to seek accreditation at this point, due to the “difficulty of the process.”

I know zero about the accreditation process, but it seems to me if there were ever an education startup for which the process was difficult, American Scholars would be among those facing the toughest task.

Matthew Pohl, the startup’s founder, and CEO told Just the News he was amazed that so few companies are interested in making education cheaper and more attainable. “The market is yearning for this,” he said. As a former admissions officer, most recently at the University of Pennsylvania, and then an admissions consultant and educational entrepreneur, Pohl feels well-positioned to launch American Scholars

“I’ve had a front-row seat” to watch students increasingly lose their “grasp on reality” while racking up immense student-loan debt, he said. “I was essentially responsible for that as a gatekeeper.”

Too few students graduate knowing how to invest, own property, and “navigate the world with constitutional rights on their mind,” Pohl told Just the News. There’s too much focus on getting into college and too little on “being mindful about the investment” — choosing majors with a good return on investment — and even worse, “paying bloated bureaucracies that peddle divisive ideologies.”

And ominously, as we continue to see, as more and more reports “leak out, that “peddling” is quickly moving to “full-blown indoctrination” — including of grade school kids.

Meanwhile…

GOP reps push back on Biden’s Critical Race Theory proposal https://t.co/z7qG52YUc9 pic.twitter.com/P3NMClM8fG

— Newsmax (@newsmax) April 28, 2021

Given that American Scholars plans to tell the CRT crowd to stick it where the sun don’t shine, I have to believe Mr. Pohl and his “deplorable” former NYU professor are potentially going to find a yuuge market for their product.

I, for one, couldn’t be more encouraged by the vision and efforts of these guys.

“Deplorable” be damned. Right, Hillary?

Here are a few other recent “fun” stories that got our attention:

Joe Biden Embarrasses Himself and Undermines CDC During Visit With Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter

Mainstream Media Drools All Over Kamala’s First 100 Days of… Fashion and Crocheting

This CIA Recruitment Ad May Be the Wildest Festival of Crazy You’ve Ever Seen