As an issue of side interest, not really related to the post itself, I would also recommend you check out George Wythe University. For a minuscule, unaccredited university that has its roots in the teachings of W. Cleon Skousen, it has received an unusual amount attention.
For example, both Glenn Beck and Mitt Romney participated in a fundraiser for the school. See
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/10/mitt-romney-video-wythe-glenn-beck-cleon-skousen.
I have to say that the Mother Jones description of the school's history is colorful stuff.
The school was founded in 1992 by Oliver DeMille, along with two other Skousen associates. DeMille is described in a 2007 university catalog as "a popular keynote speaker, writer, and business consultant" who earned a master's degree in "Christian Political Science" and a doctorate in religious education at the unaccredited and now-defunct Coral Ridge Baptist University. In 1992, DeMille published an over-the-top tract, The New World Order: Choosing Between Christ and Satan in the Last Days, in which he and his coauthor wrote:
The term "New World Order" means the same thing today—abolishment of Christianity and the adoption of Satan's plan—whether spoken in lodges and meetings of secret societies or on national television by George Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev. This does not mean that Bush or Gorbachev are Satan-worshippers, but they have accepted his plan—that governments should use force to make people live correctly.
The book also noted:
During the coming year the secret combinations and the governments they control will do a number of things to build a Satanic New World Order. President Bush and many Congressmen, who are controlled by the secret societies, will attempt to further this cause and to continue the curtailment of freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution.
DeMille's book endorsed an assortment of conservative conspiracy theories, including the notion that the "Establishment" was going to turn the United States into a socialist state, disarm the American military and put it under United Nations control, and merge the country with Mexico, Canada, and other Latin American countries. (According to an official history of GWU, DeMille later considered the publication of this book a mistake.)
In the program for the 2009 Beck-Romney fundraiser, DeMille's welcome message sounded the alarm: "The figurative redcoats are at our door as threats to our liberty, prosperity, and sovereignty are no longer ideological or symbolic, but very real and immediate." One way to preserve liberty, he noted, was to donate to George Wythe University.
The school was established in a hunting lodge in southern Utah purchased by William Doughty, a Skousen devotee who also wanted to create a self-sufficient alternative community for conservatives who believed that the Constitution was being dismantled by the US government. The initial plans called for a center devoted to Skousen and his writings and a constitutional theme park populated by Benjamin Franklin and Patrick Henry impersonators. Skousen and his family donated more than $100,000 and gave their blessing to Doughty's fundraising efforts.
The constitutional utopia never materialized. Doughty came under investigation for allegedly bilking investors and donors out of $1 million. (No further action was ever taken against him.) But George Wythe University held on and continued to advance the work of Skousen, a conspiratorialist in his own right, who advocated extreme views across a wide range of subjects.
Dr. Boyle has quite a job bringing this small school out of the ditch:
George Wythe University has never been accredited, and for most of its history, its leadership has been comprised of people who earned their academic credentials from other unaccredited schools. (Andrew Groft, a recent president whose degrees came from George Wythe, was caught in a prostitution sting shortly after leaving the school.) For years, the school handed out generous "life experience" credits toward a Ph.D. in a host of different specialties. One of the school's most famous doctorate recipients is former Michigan congressman Mark Siljander. He served for a couple of years as a George Wythe trustee and earned a Ph.D. in international business from the school after writing a 10-page dissertation and attending no classes. In 2010, Siljander pleaded guilty to charges he had been an unregistered lobbyist for an Islamic charity with terrorist ties. In his sentencing memo, the Department of Justice labeled George Wythe University a "diploma mill."
Since its inception, the school has suffered financial difficulties. In recent years, it has been plagued with declining enrollment. Shortly before the Beck fundraiser, the university reported that its enrollment was half of what it had been the previous year, with only about 150 students. More recent money troubles have stemmed from ill-advised real estate deals in an effort to build a much larger campus. The high-profile endorsements from Beck and Romney did not do much to place the school on better footing. The gala itself, according to school officials, "failed to net any gains."
GWU has recently closed its doctorate program, and this spring announced that it was abandoning ambitious plans for the new campus. Its main building in Cedar City is for sale, and the school is now operating out of an office suite in Salt Lake City. Enrollment is down to a mere 60 students.
There are conflicting accounts as to how Romney came to endorse George Wythe. Shanon Brooks, a former GWU president and head of the committee that organized the 2009 gala, tells Mother Jones, "I believe that the video was secured via members of his family who had a connection with him." But Andrea Saul, a Romney campaign spokeswoman, says, "Glenn Beck asked Gov. Romney to introduce him, and the governor agreed to do it." By this telling, Romney, as he was eyeing his next presidential bid, endorsed a conspiracy-promoting school of iffy standing to score points with a conspiracy-minded conservative icon—and ended up making common cause with crackpot thinking shunned by the Mormon church and the National Review.
Well, I wish him all the best. Now that he has been published in the peer-reviewed Interpreter, he has one more notch on the old CV belt.
"Petition wasn’t meant to start a witch hunt as I’ve said 6000 times." ~ Hanna Seariac, LDS apologist