On March 13, the Trump fascists issued an outrageous and unprecedented list of demands that Columbia University must comply with in order to even negotiate with the government for federal funds. This comes five days after the Gestapo-like abduction of Mahmoud Khalil (the Palestine solidarity activist and a movement spokesperson at Columbia) by ICE agents! It comes six days after the federal government cut off $400 million for scientific research conducted at Columbia. Meanwhile, the fascist regime announced a new round of government investigations into 52 universities to crack down on “DEI” (diversity, equity, inclusion) programs in campus curriculum and hiring. 

Fascist Demands, an Accommodating Administration

Let's look at some of these nine demands that Columbia must meet by March 20. They require that Columbia:

• Grant “full law enforcement authority, including arrest and removal of agitators,” to public safety officers;
• Abolish the University Judicial Board;
• Complete disciplinary proceedings for students involved in the Gaza protests;
• Enforce a ban on masks [used by protesters to protect their identities and safety];
• Place the Middle East, South Asian, and African Studies department under “academic receivership” [a process that requires an outside chair to run the department for a minimum of five years];
• Implement “a plan for comprehensive admissions reform”' [read: vet racial-national backgrounds and political views of prospective students]. 

Never has the U.S. government taken such extreme measures to discipline and compel the university to align its views and practices to the politics and priorities of the government. What is happening now is even more extreme than what happened at the height of McCarthyism of the early 1950s, when left-wing and communist professors were targeted by Congressional committees. These demands to Columbia gut any degree or semblance of university independence. This fascist diktat, or decree, is the spearpoint of the war on the university as it has existed for generations. (A diktat is a punitive decree imposed unilaterally on a country, party, or institution.) 

This is the playbook of a Nazi-like takeover. As classics professor Joseph Howley at Columbia put it: “If the federal government can show up and demand a university department be shut down or restructured, then we don't have universities in this country.” 

And what has been the response of Katrina Armstrong, interim president of Columbia? Outcry, rebuke, a call to the academic and broader community to resist and protect the integrity and very survival of intellectual life in the university and society? The demand that ICE agents get off the campus? 

Fuck no! In response to the cancellation of federal research funds, Armstrong declared that Columbia is “committed to working with the federal government to address their legitimate demands.” 

Note the invocation of “legitimate”—that these fascists somehow have “legitimate” concerns and claims. Truly a “profile in cowardice.” Truly a lesson NOT learned from the rise of Hitler, when most academic institutions either enthusiastically embraced Hitler or thought they could accommodate and squirm their way to survival. Which of course begs the question: survival for what and as what?! 

Stepping Back

This fascist assault on the university took a qualitative leap in response to the courageous student movement to stop the U.S.-Zionist-Israeli genocide in Gaza and the complicity of the university in war crimes and Zionist apartheid. This movement has faced unrelenting repression from the start—from university administrations, Zionist donors and thugs, and local police... up to the highest levels of governance. Now it is facing whole new levels of repression, with the university itself as we know it on the chopping block.

Why is this movement the target of such intense attack and vitriol? Because criticism of and opposition to the state of Israel is a kind of “third rail” of American politics and political life—a "no go" because it touches on the most strategic interests of U.S. imperialist interests. The apartheid state of Israel is financially, militarily, and diplomatically propped up by U.S. imperialism to function as a “watch-dog” and “attack-dog” for the interests of Western, especially U.S., imperialism in a strategic part of the world. (See the series of social media messages from Bob Avakian titled “Palestine, Israel, U.S. Imperialism and Revolution.”)

And here is something that people need to appreciate. The university is one of the few spaces in society where critical thinking and dissent have some initiative, and where radical movements have space to develop, where ideas have space to incubate. This happened in the 1960s.¹ The potential for this kind of dissent to spread and influence society more broadly is threatening to the rulers of society. Last spring in particular, the protest and dissent on the campuses jolted large sections of society to seriously re-examine their views on Israel and the U.S. This protest powerfully included the willingness of students to be arrested and to stand up to violent attack from Zionist thugs. It is this questioning—not the few incidents of anti-Semitism that in no way characterize the movement—that the capitalist-imperialist ruling class finds so threatening and that they are determined to crack down on.

And here is something else to reckon with: If the Trump fascist regime has its way—and it is well on its way—that university as “incubator of ideas” will be no more. 

The Trump MAGA fascists in power are aiming to restructure the university: to outlaw protest; to monitor and regulate curriculum: from Black history to the history of the Palestinian people as a people uprooted, oppressed, and subjugated by the apartheid state of Israel. They aim to harass and drive out professors who stand with righteous protest and who fight to teach “inconvenient truths” of empire, history, and the world… who foster critical and creative thinking.

“Nazification” An Apt Description

The phrase “Nazification of the university” describes the process that has taken a dangerous and unprecedented leap in the last few weeks: a) suppression and criminalization of dissent; b) thought control over faculty, curriculum, acceptable discourse; and c) semi-militarization, with agents of repression like ICE and Department of Homeland Security now infiltrated on to campus with license to surveil, intimidate, arrest, and deport. 

In examining the larger situation we are facing, the revolutionary leader Bob Avakian has drawn the important parallel to the rise of Hitler in the early 1930s. Hitler came to power through “normal” processes and “trampled on and quickly put an end to the basic norms and principles of that republic, forcibly imposing in its place the open fascist dictatorship by the Nazis. This laid the basis for all the horrific atrocities committed by the Hitler/Nazi regime... what is happening now with Trump fascist rule also involves a terrible momentum that will involve massive monstrous crimes against humanity, in this country and in the world overall.” 

Our Historic Responsibility

We have a limited time to act. As Bob Avakian goes on to argue,

Before Trump’s fascist rule can become fully consolidated and carry out even far worse horrors than what it is already perpetrating, it must be defeated through powerful mass mobilization— overcoming all “divide and conquer” schemes, uniting all who can be united, from many different viewpoints and perspectives, in actively opposing, defying and resisting this fascism, in continually growing numbers—moving to quickly involve millions, determined to create such a profound political crisis that Trump cannot govern the country and continue to implement his fascist program, with all its terrible consequences.

Columbia-Barnard has been the epicenter of both student-faculty resistance and the repression against it. The fascists want to turn this assault on speech, protest, and academic freedom at Columbia, at this Ivy League university, into a proving ground for restructuring the university. They want to turn this university (and all universities) into a “dead-zone” of compliance with and obedience to fascism—with all of the ominous implications for the political and intellectual life of society overall, and for people's capacity and willingness to resist, that go with that. 

We must draw the line here and now: refusal, defiance, resistance... no business as usual. We must turn this into our proving ground. To make the battle to defeat this fascist onslaught at Columbia—as we unite ever more broadly and draw growing numbers into this fight from all corners of society—into an example and clarion call to others.

This only stops when we dare to stop it, when we dare to stand on principle and humanity—and challenge others to do the same. It only STOPS when we grow to the millions and say, “The Trump Fascist Regime Must Go. NO! In the name of humanity, we refuse to accept a fascist America.”

Free Mahmoud Khalil Now!

Stop the Fascist Assault on Academic Freedom, Protest, and Basic Rights

In the Name of Humanity, We Refuse to Accept a Fascist America