BROOKLYN, NY, January 23— After months of asking, prodding, and at last threatening disciplinary action, the City University of New York’s (CUNY) interrogation squad finally got an anti-racist professor into a room to grill him!
As CHALLENGE has been reporting since last spring, a multiracial group of students,and staff  at Kingsborough Community College (KCC) produced and began distributing leaflets calling for the termination of a racist administrator, Michael Goldstein. Members of the communist Progressive Labor Party struggled over and received a positive response to the militant anti-racist position of “no free speech for racists!”
Led by mostly immigrant women students, along with Black and white students, workers and faculty, the struggle quickly grew to dozens of students. These students reached hundreds more, distributing over 1,500 leaflets and hundreds of CHALLENGE newspapers calling for racist Goldstein’s termination.
Instead of investigating racist Goldstein, CUNY’s Public Safety bosses decided to try intimidating faculty they suspect took part in the campaign. The cops sent these faculty certified letters requesting them to appear so they could “fish” for information. Following the bad advice of their union representatives, the Professional Staff Congress (PSC), several professors appeared. The cops used campus video surveillance to identify an antiracist professor they were certain was involved, and compelled him to appear.
Turning danger into opportunity
This professor rejected the passive, legalistic, strategy counseled by the PSC. Instead, bold and militant plans were made to continue organizing mass struggle, defend both the leaflet and the campaign against Goldstein, defy the interrogators, and challenge them to investigate the racists.
This struggle provided many opportunities for PLers to expose the racist, pro-capitalist class nature of both KCC and of CUNY in our student PLP study groups. We also made a plan to collaborate on a new leaflet, and distribute it on the day of the interrogation.
At the interrogation, the professor came with an anti-racist faculty member as a witness, instead of a PSC representative. “What caused you to attack [Goldstein] with these leaflets?” the investigators asked. The professor answered simply: “Racists should not be working at our school.” He explained that while he was not involved in the leaflet’s production, he supports this struggle, and will always support exposing racists.
Students: potential revolutionary force
The interrogators brought up the notion of “free speech”and a “free and fair exchange of ideas.” A small group of so-called progressive or left faculty at the school argue in favor of this view as well. Students, workers and many faculty, however, generally agree with us. No free speech for racists!
How can a classroom of immigrant and Black students be fair and equitable if faculty or administrators feel free to express racist ideas against these students? A few of these fake leftist professors also have the racist view that when students fight back, they don’t understand what they are doing. They are being used. But students understand racism better than many professors because it directly affects their lives.
Yet in practice, these same liberal faculty often fail to follow their own cherished idealism. After students and staff attacked racist Goldstein for his hateful views against immigrant, Muslim, Black, Latin, and LGBT workers, the anti-racist faculty were criticized by some of these liberal faculty. Some even asked this anti-racist professor to step down from a union leadership position. As it turned out, some other faculty were inspired by this anti racist struggle. Because of these anti-racists, the effort failed.
There is irony in this experience. Liberal “left” faculty, in their actions, supported the rights of the racist to express his views, but then worked to limit anti-racist views.  A couple of “leaders of the left” on campus even asked the antiracist faculty to turn themselves in to the police. The students were outraged when they found out this had been said by the same faculty who claim to support them.
In the PLP study groups, we discuss how liberal ideas often end up attacking militant anti-racism. These events underline the importance of expanding our CHALLENGE networks even further beyond the mass of students and staff who read it regularly,and struggling to continue expanding revolutionary communist ideas.
Gear up for spring and May Day!
A dozen students and faculty waited an hour and a half to hear a report from the interrogation. Our spirits were high and our determination to continue the fight against racism was strengthened. Being attacked for fighting racism is a good thing. With every step we’ve taken, our sisters and brothers have responded with friendship and comradeship. We’re gaining the confidence that many workers and students support this fight, and some are joining us. This coming spring semester we’re enlisting every one of our new comrades and friends to continue our mass anti-racist struggle, and build for May Day

NEW YORK CITY, January 30–Tonight, the National Writers Union held a forum where volunteers reported on their experience at the Mexican/U.S. border as part of the New Sanctuary Caravan project, to stand in solidarity with workers who have traveled thousands of miles in a caravan from Central America, fleeing poverty and violence. These national borders are one of the great evils of capitalism. The capitalist bosses travel freely around the world seeking profits and destroying the lives of workers.
Attending the forum were union and immigration activists, journalists, teachers, and retired workers of all ages, including members and friends of the Progressive Labor Party. Two of the speakers were members of the National Writers Union, a local of the United Auto Workers (UAW), which has organized other UAW locals to provide money and volunteers for this project.
 “The meeting between U.S. volunteers and the fleeing migrants has been transformative,” said one audience member, himself a volunteer, praising the New Sanctuary Coalition and El Otro Lado for providing food, shelter, legal aide, staff, and space in Tijuana, while building international solidarity with the slogan of “no borders.” However, he added, “there’s a need for more than defensive action, more than aid. We need more bold action, more political leadership.” To follow up this person’s point we need communist leadership that fights for a world run by the working class.
He then told how refugees living in one shelter were ordered by Mexican police to leave or be ejected by force. When they refused to leave, volunteers went and stood in front of the shelter. The police retreated. A nice example of working class power.
The thousands who have been flocking to the border directly contradict Trump and his supporters’ racist characterization of immigrants as “criminals.” People are outraged at the plight of migrants, who are stopped at the border, then forced to wait weeks, even months, before they’re allowed to cross and apply for asylum.
One refugee, a woman in a shelter, told a volunteer that she fled from her home, after a gang member threatened to kill her and her children if she didn’t continue paying “rent.” Desperate, she joined the caravan leaving her children behind, not realizing the asylum process could take years before she would see them again.
A doctor in the audience linked the border crisis to current U.S. government efforts to replace the president of Venezuela with a right-wing leader. Guaido, the right wing leader, is a puppet of U.S. imperialism and the corrupt President Maduro is a stooge of Chinese and Russian imperialism. Workers need to reject both (See editorial, page 2).
“All my patients are undocumented,” she said. “We need to see this situation as part of a long history of U.S. imperialism forcing people to flee.”  Most current refugees are from Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador, countries with a long history of repressive regimes supported by the U.S.
Another person reminded listeners that restrictive immigration policies are a “bi-partisan” effort.  Greatly expanding the size of the Border Patrol, building walls, and increasing spending for border security began under Democratic President Clinton.
The biggest victory of organizing support for the humanitarian crisis is the potential to change mass consciousness among millions of workers. The UAW, with 40,000 members in this region, is committing thousands of dollars to support volunteers. Other activists are organizing to get Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) out of NY Courts as well as to provide money, vans, and medical relief. PLP will continue to organize in our unions, community organizations, schools, and workplaces to develop and transform mass class-consciousness into a working class political force with the power to smash all borders with communist revolution

The struggle in Oakland, California is heating up!  The last couple of weeks have been action packed as the multi-racial working class, students, teachers, parents and community supporters, has mobilized against on-going, racist plans to dismantle public education from k-12 to Community College.  In the following three instances, Progressive Labor Party members and friends are actively promoting communist ideas, as they fight for better schools.

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No More Chances for the Chancellor
January 17—As Oakland teachers gear up for a potential strike, Laney College and Peralta District staff put the bosses’ minions and cowardly unions on notice. A contingent of faculty at Laney Community College riled up the crowd at a pre-semester gathering and faced down the Chancellor.  300 members of the morning audience stood up, turned their backs for 30 seconds, and chanted along with us, “When education is under attack, what do we do? Stand up! Fight back!” Even though the chancellor was flanked by three large Alameda County Sheriffs, a cowardly boss tactic, the courageous workers did not back down and set the tone for the new semester.  We cannot allow the status quo abuse to continue without causing a ruckus and hoped our action would spark more fight back.
For years now, the Chancellor has funneled money for needed classes and programs to hire chums and associates in the usual administrative shell gaming of public funds. A year ago, a collective of staff, students, community and at the last minute, union members campaigned to help defeat his attempts to sell district land to the Oakland A’s baseball team. He’s a true capitalist school boss, unapologetic, and as we say in the Bay, really “feelin’ himself.”
This fightback was discussed about a month ago. It was popularly received by a large part of the local union but it took the leadership of some teachers to turn talk into action. Despite the lack of time, we organized: created & printed a leaflet which documented the chancellor’s well known abuses, blasted fight tunes and crafted handmade signs.  
Days later, the Chancellor tried to contain the damage and “flip the script” of this bold action with an email to the staff in the four Colleges in the Peralta Community College District. He called for unity “to institute a new culture” a New Peralta Way. Many know that this “unity” is garbage. The Chancellor’s “culture” is to destabilize the curriculum so students can’t get needed courses for graduation, create “debt peonage” among students who can’t afford the fees, destroy adjunct teaching positions with part-timing and drive dedicated teachers out of a job with below subsistence wages.
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Oakland Unified School District, Ready to Strike!
January 18—Teachers and students from five Oakland high schools staged a sick out/wildcat rally and march on Oakland Unified SchoDistrict (OUSD). Not officially sectioned by the Oakland Education Association (OEA) meant that this action, like the previous wildcat, represented rank and file teachers on the move organizing at the school level and reaching out to students and families. “Ready to Strike” was the theme of the day. As we distributed over sixty Challenges, PLP members learned that many teachers in Oakland are committed to schools for the common good just like the teachers in Los Angeles(LA). They understand that teachers’ teaching conditions are students learning conditions. Students and parents both talked about how the high turnover rate of Oakland teachers was due to unsustainable pay, housing insecurity and arbitrary administration decision to “non reelect” teachers after one or two years.
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Workers & students dig deep to keep Roots Academy open
January 23—Teachers, parents and students from Roots Academy shut down the OUSD to stop school closing. Citing Budget problems, “empty seats” and “under enrollment”, OUSD plans to close 24 schools over the next years while they process “public” Charter School applications to use “empty classroom” on public school sites.   
Roots Academy is the first on the chopping block. Closing Roots is the epitome of institutional racism and displacement; it is a predominately Black and Latin school in the working class neighborhood of East Oakland, which is also subject to foreclosures, evictions, and profiteering in the housing market.  The board’s “experts” have cited Roots as a “failing school.”
The bureaucratic drivel about following Board procedure and listening to the staff recommendations to close the school did not impress the students as they continued to denounce the board. A few days later at a special meeting packed again with Roots supporters—OUSD racist Board of Ed voted to close Roots Academy. OEA plans a legal challenge and the Roots community vowed that the struggle continues.  
In the midst of these battles, PLP held a study/action meeting (see letter, page 6) on education under capitalism.  We hoped to better prepare ourselves to marry the immediate fight against the destabilizing, privatization and re-segregation of education for the working class with the long-range goal of building an egalitarian communist world.

Washington, DC, January 19 – At the third annual Women’s March, thousands of protestors gathered and marched down Pennsylvania Avenue past the Trump Hotel. Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members joined both the feeder rally at the New York City union headquarters of the AFL-CIO, and the main rally, getting our communist line out with sales of CHALLENGE and flyers inviting marchers to an event sponsored by Mass Liberation, a local anti-racist group on January 26.
Mass Liberation’s event  focused on the case of Roxana Santos, a Salvadoran worker who has been threatened with deportation after being unlawfully arrested a decade ago in Maryland (Washington Post 1/1). Workers at the Women’s March were astounded to learn that Ms. Santos was arrested by ICE (Immigration & Customs Enforcement) for deportation, as she was leaving the courthouse after winning her civil rights lawsuit against the Maryland county sheriff’s department for racial profiling and illegal detention.
The issue resonated with the crowd and generated a lot of interest at the AFL-CIO rally because it supported the workers leading the Los Angeles teachers’ strike. The strike, a militant reform action, was anti-sexist, pro-education and pro-labor, challenging the exploitation of public school privatization; it gave workers the opportunity to organize and work together. Some workers even saluted CHALLENGE sellers with a clenched fist in response to the “STRIKE!” headline as they passed by.
The AFL-CIO speakers were a disappointment, limiting their strategy for change to electoral activity. Workers’ rights will never be won by voting, but only by an international, worker-led revolution. In stark contrast, one local protestor, and friend of PLP gave a fiery speech calling for a general strike against the shutdown of the government. Young workers cheered in support, while AFL-CIO hacks simply studied their shoes carefully during the speech.
 Meanwhile, a Ford worker from Kentucky suggested we should respond the way workers in France do—all walk out!  We had a lengthy conversation with a Black steelworker from Pittsburgh, who wondered, like the Kentucky Ford worker, why the 800,000 workers furloughed by the shutdown weren’t in the streets, shutting down the city.
“We need worker solidarity across unions,” he said, “to shut down the country until they get people back to work.” He added, “workers have to be less afraid.” He went on to describe how the Pittsburgh bosses have dressed up the city’s waterfront, but have left the neighborhoods in terrible shape due to corruption and cutbacks.
One young woman from San Diego, whose brother is incarcerated, was interested in the APHA (American Public Health Assn) resolution that names police violence as a public health threat (see CHALLENGE, December 19, 2018). A former guard from North Carolina told us he was horrified and quit his job once he realized the private prison industry just wanted to make profits by getting more and more prisoners. Two young Black D.C. teachers also took CHALLENGE, saying that conditions in D.C. schools were deteriorating as well.
With new friends and connections made at the rally, PLP will continue to grow the communist movement, fight past the no-win electoral strategies, and advance on the road to revolution.