The context of contemporary universities restrains their ability to drive public policy. Yet, currently, they confront the relative success of a global network of neoliberal institutes, referred to as think-tanks, promoting freedoms derived from particular ideologies. Neoliberal reasoning has so moulded classical ideas of individual freedom into a radical hegemony of market supremacy that, in one application, it discounts scientific acknowledgement of anthropogenic climate change and seeks to deny its existence. This article links think-tanks, commercial and government media within a neoliberal alliance, which aims to "balance" public information through ideological promulgations. It further contends that, largely of their own making, universities lack the philosophical positioning, will and the organisation effectively to meet this challenge. Situational analysis, strategy formulation and changes to practice are required before any meaningful response can be contemplated.