It has been happening for decades.
I didn’t realize exactly what it was until another freeper posted an article about Gramsci.
I wish I could remember the screenname for pinging purposes.
Many have posted on Gramsci here, but it was probably Ernest_at_the_Beach.
The ideological chain of custody went from Gramsci, to the German communists in the Frankfurt School, and thence to America (the NAZIs kicked them out and the Roosevelt administration and American universities welcomed them with open arms). Prominent Frankfurt School "alums" were Abraham Maslow (putting "mental health" under medical control), Eric Fromm (radical feminism and family breakdown), and Herbert Marcuse (toward radicalizing state educated children).
This expulsion was in large part the result of the takeover of Berlin at the hands of the communist Spartakusbund led by Rosa Luxembourg, effectively turning the capital city into the German equivalent of San Francisco, a cesspool of strikes and sexual depravity. In many ways it was the Spartakusbund that drove people toward National Socialism.
Unknown to many is that this was the second wave of communist emigration to America from Germany. The original was subsequent to the aborted communist revolution in 1848. Hence were the open arms for the Frankfurt School in American universities.