As part of the escalating attacks on education and free speech nationwide, on August 18, UC Berkeley handed over the names of at least 160 students, faculty, and staff to the federal government to comply with an investigation into alleged antisemitism on college campuses. The university has not provided any information about the charges or details of the investigation with those targeted.
This comes amid the Trump administration’s threats to cut billions of dollars in federal funding to universities unless they crack down on campus activism against the genocide in Palestine. Most recently, the administration has leveraged the assassination of far-right media personality Charlie Kirk as a pretext to escalate its repression of those it views as political adversaries and, in particular, to attack free speech in higher education.
A professor at Texas A&M was recently fired after a student secretly recorded her teaching that there are more than two genders. The student claimed this was illegal. The student cited Trump’s executive order 14168, which, along with withdrawing federal recognition of transgender people, prohibits the use of federal funds to “promote gender ideology.” Soon after, Texas State University dismissed an associate history professor over footage of him speaking at a socialist conference on Zoom.
The targeting and censorship of students and educators is a blatant attack on free speech within our educational system–a system that we are told is supposed to foster free and open thought, inquiry, and exchange. These assaults, as well as the persecution of those seen as challenging the ideology of those in power, come as no surprise. Ruling-class control over education – and, with it, our national narrative and consciousness – is one of their tools to suppress popular resistance and maintain their power over the majority. We saw this during the McCarthy era of the 1940s and ‘50s, when the U.S. government investigated and repressed many people accused of being communists.
All of us – as educators, students, and working people – both sustain and depend on our educational system to gain the knowledge and skills that keep society running. With education and free speech under attack, it is imperative that we fight back against the minority class of billionaires whose interests benefit from these assaults.
