We are living through a major assault on academic freedom, scientific rigor and the truth. Universities are being turned into the servants of a fascist takeover of society.  This is the new reality—it must be confronted, fought, and defeated.

For a number of years there has been important scholarship, as well as political education and organizing, around the questions of Palestine and Israel on many campuses. With the genocidal Israeli response to the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023, many campuses erupted into protest and counter-protest, with lively and often fierce debate, combined with deep study. In response, many campus administrations called in police to violently suppress and often arrest pro-Palestinian students and professors. Activists were doxxed and hounded. Pro-Palestinian groups were banned on many campuses.  Students were expelled. This suppression was justified by equating righteous stands against the state of Israel and its U.S.-backed genocide of Palestinians as identical to hatred of Jewish people, in other words equating anti-Zionism (opposition to the state of Israel) with anti-Semitism (being against Jewish people as Jews).

When Trump came to power, he seized on this as a pretext to “break the universities” as spaces for critical thinking and inquiry and, instead, turn them into vehicles of fascist indoctrination. Trump has subjected a number of major colleges and universities to intense financial pressure and political blackmail to give in to a whole host of fascist demands in the name of "combatting anti-Semitism."

As one key part of this, Trump demanded that these schools adopt the wrong and dishonest definition of anti-Semitism put forward by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, or IHRA. 

To be clear, anti-Semitism—the hatred of Jewish people as Jews—has been used to justify terrible oppression and suffering for centuries and it should be opposed by any decent person. But this is different than opposition to the Jewish supremacist and oppressive state of Israel. In fact, many Jewish people are themselves fierce critics of Israel and its policies—particularly its genocide in Palestine. Adopting the IHRA's definition will prevent the teaching of much of the actual history of Israel, and its role in the world today. Yet agreement with this definition is now to be inscribed into the operating principles of those universities which make deals with Trump. And Trump has demanded in many cases that universities pay millions of dollars in penalties for supposedly violating this definition. (It is worth noting that at this point even the original author of this definition has come out against this use of it by Trump and others.)

The IHRA definition forbids comparisons of Israel to Nazi Germany, and it forbids people from challenging the racist nature of the Jewish supremacist state. Thus, it condemns the discussion and teaching of certain historically agreed-upon and indisputable facts. For example, the calculated massacres of civilians by Israeli forces in villages like Deir Yassin in 1948 and others throughout its history [See "The Case of Israel: Bastion of Enlightenment or Enforcer for Imperialism?"] are, presumably, no longer to be taught. Certain viewpoints and even histories—taking in a wide range of political opinions and sources that marshal convincing proof of Israel’s apartheid nature—must no longer be studied.  Certain conclusions must not be drawn, debated or even mentioned—lest the campus violate Trump-approved “facts.” 

Such rules make a mockery of the search for truth and of the principle of vigorous debate to get to that truth. This is suppression and censorship, where defiance comes at the cost of expulsion or firing or, yes, legal prosecution and political persecution—witness the case of Mahmoud Khalil and so many others. (Go here for more on this.)

This would be like demanding that biology professors no longer teach the theory of evolution, which has been proven from thousands of different directions. Oh, wait—that idea, not so incidentally, is also an “aspiration” among a large section of the Trump/Maga movement. 

The inescapable fact is this: any college or university which goes along with this command has, whatever they want to tell themselves, become a willing accomplice of fascism. Any university president who bows down to and harnesses their school to Trump's wholesale assault on the truth and on basic academic freedom is betraying the mission of seeking to know the truth and hence not worthy of their post. Any accommodation to this command, by any faculty or any other member of the campus community, no matter how seemingly “just” the excuse, is collaboration.

Every decent professor knows, or should know, that invoking this wrong definition and using it as a basis for repression—for expelling students, withdrawing diplomas, policing and suppressing campus organizations and protest—is a fundamental assault on every university’s code of institutional integrity.

Columbia University—one of the most egregious capitulators—actually states that: 

Academic freedom implies that all officers of instruction are entitled to freedom in the classroom in discussing their subjects; that they are entitled to freedom in research and in the publication of its results; and that they may not be penalized by the University for expressions of opinion or associations in their private or civic capacity; but they should bear in mind the special obligations arising from their position in the academic community.

How does this in any way comport with the use of the IHRA definition as a litmus test?

Respect is due to those professors who have resigned in protest, especially those who have seized a public platform to denounce this fascist requirement and expose the mendacity (habitual lying), bad faith and danger to truth at its root. But what is needed now is something more—a massive refusal to accommodate to this new order, massive institutional non-compliance linked to a growing demand throughout society: The Fascist Trump Regime Must Go NOW!

Fascism is happening NOW. Now what will we—what will you­—do about it??

NO COMPLIANCE WITH FASCIST DICTATES!  DEFEND ACADEMIC FREEDOM!

STOP THE SUPPRESSION OF ANTI-GENOCIDE PRO-PALESTINIAN PROTESTERS!

IMMEDIATE REHIRING OF THE PROFESSORS WHO HAVE BEEN FORCED OUT BY TRUMP FASCISM! 

IMMEDIATE REINSTATEMENT OF EXPELLED STUDENTS!

TRUMP MUST GO NOW!