The Donald Trump wing of U.S. capitalist fascism is busy attacking a whole range of universities, firing, disciplining and silencing faculty who oppose the Israeli/U.S. genocide in Gaza (American Association of University Professors, 11/25). Trump’s targets range from the presidents of big private colleges like Penn and Harvard, through tenured professors at major public colleges like California and Texas, to unprotected adjunct lecturers at mass-education universities, like the “Fired Four” at Brooklyn College (CHALLENGE, 10/29)). Protesting students, of course, have been attacked much harder, with arrests, beatings, jail and deportation.
Professors are fighting back through mass organizations like the AFT or NEA unions, the AAUP (Association of American University Professors), and CAHE (Coalition for Action in Higher Education). CAHE organized a national day of action last April 17 which held events that day on 200 campuses (LA Daily Post, 4/17). Progressive Labor Party (PLP) comrades in these organizations, which now have a growing record of fightback, are urging their members to go all the way to fight for communism.
Communism organizes knowledge for the working class
Communist teaching and learning have been organized--and will be again--with mass worker participation and decision-making, to create science, art, history, music, literature, and philosophy by and for the entire working class, internationally. It is a long way from the current racist, capitalist, imperialist university to a university “of the whole people” across the globe! Maybe it would look nothing like the current socially isolated campuses, but be more integrated into workers’ lives both at work and at home, in a process of continuous teaching and learning for everyone. It would also allow and find the time for many to dig deeper into the full-time specialized training a workers’ world would need. Opportunities for all workers to deepen their special knowledge and ability to contribute at a higher level would be wide open and encouraged by the Party (Paul Gomberg’s concept of “contributive justice” as a corrective to the bosses’ racism, sexism, and contempt for the working class).
Communism promotes critical thinking by and for every worker
It is important for a communist party to bring the idea of fighting for communism to professors fighting back now against rising fascism. Fascism has always gone after critical thinking and anyone who practices it seriously. Liberalism is for it, but in a limited way. Communism is for a thorough, universal, collective deepening of critical thought, a high level of literacy, and a grasp of scientific knowledge throughout the entire working class, part of workers taking power, part of workers being in charge at last, part of enriching workers’ minds and unchaining their full creativity.
Liberal professors see these attacks as “discriminating against dissent” and undermining academic freedom to teach and learn, and have brought strong legal cases against the Trump regime, some of which might succeed. But capitalist liberalism is a dead end, the good-cop twin of bad-cop fascism. While PLP unites with our liberal co-workers in this struggle, we insist on pointing out that it’s not just Trump, it’s capitalism. And we are seeing that many of our friends agree--even if they don’t yet see communism as the alternative.
Billionaires out of our classrooms!
The liberals are targeting billionaires like Marc Rowan, sun-god CEO of the private equity firm Apollo Global Management, who wrote the Trump “compact,” a deal university administrators are supposed to sign with Trump to support his agenda. Rowan’s office building in Manhattan was blasted by an AAUP/CAHE/campus union rally on November 7. Penn’s Wharton Business School then announced Rowan would be replaced as board chair next year. No great victory perhaps--maybe Rowan just wanted to go lie in the sun?--but bosses do feel it when you bring a big loud picket line outside their window. It helps to feel a little of the power we will have when we unite as the whole working class. PLP professors are doing our best to urge this growing mass movement in the direction of a mass communist party. It can happen here!
