Upcoming Events: April 8th, Kill the Cuts (Nationwide), Protest at ASU+GSV (San Diego). April 17th Fight for Higher Education (Nationwide). Send tips to Glen McGhee at gmcghee@aya.yale.edu.
The faculty and national labor unions allege that the Trump
administration improperly canceled Columbia University’s federal funding
to compel speech restrictions on campus, damaging both vital scientific
research and academic discourse
NEW YORK– The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and the AFT today sued the Trump administration
on behalf of their members for unlawfully cutting off $400 million in
federal funding for crucial public health research to force Columbia
University to surrender its academic independence. While the Trump
administration has been slashing funding since its first days in office,
this move represents a stunning new tactic: using cuts as a cudgel to
coerce a private institution to adopt restrictive speech codes and allow
government control over teaching and learning.
The plaintiffs,
who represent members of Columbia University faculty in both the
humanities and sciences, allege that this coercive tactic not only
undermines academic independence, but stops vital scientific research
that contributes to the health and prosperity of all Americans. The
terminated grants supported research on urgent issues, including
Alzheimer’s disease prevention, fetal health in pregnant women, and
cancer research.
The Trump administration’s unprecedented demands,
and threats of similar actions against 60 universities, have created
instability and a deep chilling effect on college campuses across the
country. Although the administration claims to be acting to combat
antisemitism under its authority to prevent discrimination, it has
completely disregarded the requirements of Title VI, the statute that
provides it with that authority–requirements that exist to prevent the
government from exercising too much unfettered control over funding
recipients. According to the complaint, the cancellation of federal
funds also violates the First Amendment, the separation of powers, and
other constitutional provisions.
“The Trump administration’s
threats and coercion at Columbia are part of a clear authoritarian
playbook meant to crush academic freedom and critical research in
American higher education. Faculty, students, and the American public
will not stand for it. The repercussions extend far beyond the walls of
the academy. Our constitutional rights, and the opportunity for our
children and grandchildren to live in a democracy are on the line,” said
Todd Wolfson, president of the AAUP.
“President
Trump has taken a hatchet to American ingenuity, imagination and
invention at Columbia to attack academic freedom and force compliance
with his political views,” said AFT President Randi Weingarten.
“Let’s be clear: the administration should tackle legitimate issues of
discrimination. But this modern-day McCarthyism is not just an illegal
attack on our nation’s deeply held free speech and due process rights,
it creates a chilling effect that hinders the pursuit of knowledge—the
core purpose of our colleges and universities. Today, we reject this
bullying and resolve to challenge the administration’s edicts until they
are rescinded.”
“We’re seeing university leadership across the
country failing to take any action to counter the Trump administration’s
unlawful assault on academic freedom,” said Reinhold Martin, president of Columbia-AAUP and professor of architecture.
“As faculty, we don’t have the luxury of inaction. The integrity of
civic discourse and the freedoms that form the basis of a democratic
society are under attack. We have to stand up.”
The complaint
alleges that the Trump administration’s broad punitive tactics are
indicative of an attempt to consolidate power over higher education
broadly. According to the complaint, the administration is
simultaneously threatening other universities with similar punishment in
order to chill dissent on specific topics and speech with which the
administration disagrees. Trump administration officials have spoken
publicly about their plans to “bankrupt these universities” if they
don’t “play ball.”
Universities have historically been engines of
innovation in critical fields like technology, national security, and
medical treatments. Cuts to that research will ultimately harm the
health, prosperity and security of all Americans.
“Columbia is the testing ground for the Trump administration’s tactic to force universities to yield to its control,” said Orion Danjuma, counsel at Protect Democracy. “We are bringing this lawsuit to protect higher education from unlawful government censorship and political repression.”
The
lawsuit was filed in the Southern District of New York and names as
defendants the government agencies that cut Columbia’s funding on March 7
and signed the March 13 letter to Columbia laying out the government's
demands required to restore the funding, including the Department of
Justice, Department of Education, Health and Human Services and General
Services Administration. The plaintiffs are represented by Protect
Democracy and Altshuler Berzon LLP.
On Tuesday, April 1, impacted workers and union leaders will discuss what higher education loses when the Department of Education is destroyed and how we can respond collectively. We will provide details on organizing next steps. Join us for the conversation on April 1.
By cutting funds to lifesaving research and medical care, the Trump administration is abandoning families who are suffering and costing taxpayers billions of dollars. These cuts are dangerous to our health, and dangerous to our economy.
On Tuesday, April 8th, 2025 workers across the country are standing up and demanding NO cuts to education and life-saving research.
We invite you to support HELU's work by making a direct financial contribution. While HELU's main source of income is solidarity pledges from member organizations, these funds from individuals help us to grow capacity as we work to align the higher ed labor movement.
As the nation grapples with profound social and economic inequities, U.S. law schools have become a critical yet overlooked institution in perpetuating these disparities. From shaping the legal minds that go on to influence policy to training future attorneys who occupy the nation's corridors of power, law schools are playing an outsized role in entrenching systems of privilege, rather than dismantling them.
One of the most glaring manifestations of this failure is the Trump-era Supreme Court, whose composition has shifted dramatically due to the influence of elite law schools. Justices such as Brett Kavanaugh (Yale Law), Neil Gorsuch (Harvard Law), and Amy Coney Barrett (Notre Dame Law) have reshaped the Court in the image of conservative ideologies. These justices, primarily from elite institutions, have consistently sided with corporate interests over public welfare. Their rulings on critical issues like voting rights (Shelby County v. Holder, 2013), abortion access (Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, 2022), and corporate regulation (South Dakota v. Wayfair, Inc., 2018) have had profound consequences, amplifying inequalities and reducing access to justice for marginalized communities. The legal minds trained in these prestigious law schools have moved away from serving the public, instead reinforcing the status quo and further consolidating power in the hands of the wealthy elite.
This trend is compounded by the overwhelming concentration of law school graduates in a handful of sectors, particularly Washington, D.C., and on Wall Street. A report from the National Association for Law Placement (NALP) reveals that nearly 70% of graduates from top law schools—such as Harvard, Yale, and Columbia—secure positions in large corporate law firms or government roles. Meanwhile, those who enter public service or work in underfunded legal fields such as public defense face a starkly different reality. According to the American Bar Association (ABA), the average starting salary for a public defender in 2020 was around $50,000, compared to $190,000 in major corporate law firms. This disparity highlights the economic realities facing graduates who pursue careers in public interest law.
Law schools exacerbate these inequities through their admissions processes, which heavily favor students from affluent backgrounds. A 2019 study by the Equality of Opportunity Projectfound that 70% of students attending Harvard Law, Yale Law, and other Ivy League law schools come from families in the top 20% income bracket, while less than 5% come from the bottom 20%. This financial divide is perpetuated by high tuition costs—Harvard Law's tuition and fees for the 2024 academic year exceed $70,000 annually—making it inaccessible to many who might otherwise have the talent and potential to succeed in law.
Furthermore, law schools’ connections with corporate sponsors and wealthy alumni networks often shape the curriculum and career pathways offered to students. As a result, legal education has become increasingly oriented toward corporate law, perpetuating a system that values prestige and financial gain over social justice. A 2021 report from the American Bar Foundation indicated that nearly half of law school graduates work in the private sector within the first ten years of their careers, most of them in high-paying corporate firms or lobbying groups, which further concentrates legal power in the hands of the elite.
The oversupply of lawyers entering corporate sectors—many of whom attend the nation’s top law schools—has created a system where elite law firms and government agencies, such as the U.S. Department of Justice and major regulatory bodies, dominate legal decision-making. This trend is also visible in the disproportionate representation of law school graduates in Washington, D.C., where they shape policy in ways that benefit large corporations and financial institutions, while leaving the needs of the general public unmet.
A central aspect of the legal system that perpetuates inequality is the way the billionaire class profits from the injustice system itself. Wealthy individuals and corporate entities have found ways to exploit the legal system to their advantage, contributing to the concentration of wealth and power. Many billionaires and large corporations fund legal battles designed to weaken regulations, block labor rights, and influence policy decisions that benefit their financial interests.
For example, major private prison companies like CoreCivic and GEO Group, both of which have ties to influential law firms, profit from the mass incarceration of predominantly Black and Latino individuals. These private companies lobby for harsher sentencing laws and immigration policies that fill their prisons, creating a cycle of profit that thrives on systemic inequality. Legal professionals trained in elite law schools frequently represent these corporations, further entrenching the power dynamics that keep vulnerable populations incarcerated.
The billionaire class also reaps the benefits of legal loopholes and tax avoidance schemes facilitated by top-tier law firms. Lawyers trained in Ivy League schools often advise wealthy clients on ways to hide their assets, evade taxes, and exploit the legal system for personal gain, which further exacerbates income inequality. Law firms and the lawyers who work in them profit immensely by providing these services, while the broader public bears the burden of underfunded social programs and public services.
The impact of law schools’ role in the legal system is not a new development, but has historical roots. For much of U.S. history, the courts and legal institutions have played a pivotal role in limiting democracy and reinforcing inequalities. However, there have been pivotal moments when the courts, often driven by lawyers trained in the nation's top schools, expanded democracy and fought for justice.
A key moment in the history of expanding democracy was the work of Thurgood Marshall and Charles Hamilton Houston, both of whom were products of Howard University School of Law—a historically Black institution that stood in stark contrast to the elite, mostly white law schools of their time. Marshall, who went on to become the first African American Supreme Court Justice, and Houston, his mentor, fought tirelessly against segregation and racial discrimination. Houston's strategy, dubbed "the 'liberal' approach to civil rights," involved challenging discriminatory laws through the courts, using legal arguments rooted in equal protection and the promise of the 14th Amendment.
Houston's legal battles laid the groundwork for the landmark Brown v. Board of Education (1954) case, where the Supreme Court, under the influence of Marshall's legal strategies, overturned the doctrine of “separate but equal” and declared racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional. This ruling, perhaps one of the most profound examples of the courts expanding democracy, was achieved through the work of legal professionals committed to social justice, many of whom came from institutions outside the mainstream elite law schools.
Unfortunately, the trend of the courts advancing civil rights was not consistent. The Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) decision, where the Supreme Court ruled that African Americans could not be citizens, and Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), which upheld racial segregation, serve as stark reminders of how the legal system can be wielded to entrench inequality and limit democracy. The very law schools that trained many of the justices responsible for these rulings were also responsible for shaping the legal education that upheld the racist and exclusionary structures of the time.
Today, the cycle of legal education serving the interests of the wealthy and powerful continues. While the courts have sometimes played a role in broadening civil rights and democracy, too often they have sided with corporate interests, limiting progress. Lawyers trained in elite law schools continue to occupy spaces where the rules of the game are rigged in favor of those with wealth and influence.
To reverse this trend, law schools must take deliberate action. They must shift their focus from training lawyers for the highest-paying and most prestigious jobs to producing attorneys who are dedicated to the public good. This includes increasing financial accessibility, offering more scholarships for low-income students, and reevaluating the curriculum to emphasize social justice, public interest law, and equitable legal reforms. Moreover, legal education should challenge the structures of wealth and power, ensuring that future lawyers are equipped to dismantle the systems that benefit billionaires and corporations at the expense of justice.
The influence of law schools in perpetuating inequality cannot be overstated. The future of the legal profession—and, by extension, the justice system—depends on whether these institutions can embrace a new mission: one that fosters true equality under the law and dismantles the structures of privilege that continue to shape our society.
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Trump appears bent on ridding schools of dangerous practices like critical thinking and an unsanitized study of history.
In the initial days of his second term, President Donald Trump issued several executive orders “seeking
to control how schools teach about race and gender, direct more tax
dollars to private schools, and deport pro-Palestinian protesters.” On January 29, 2025, he signed the “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling”
executive order, which mandates the elimination of curricula that the
administration deems as promoting “radical, anti-American ideologies.”
This executive order is not just an attack on critical race theory or
teachings about systemic racism — it is a cornerstone of an
authoritarian ideology designed to eliminate critical thought, suppress
historical truth and strip educators of their autonomy. Under the guise
of combating “divisiveness,” it advances a broader war on education as a
democratizing force, turning schools into dead zones of the
imagination. By threatening to strip federal funding from institutions
that refuse to conform, this policy functions as an instrument of
ideological indoctrination, enforcing a sanitized, nationalistic
narrative that erases histories of oppression and resistance while
deepening a culture of ignorance and compliance.
Concurrently, President Trump issued the “Expanding Educational Freedom and Opportunity for Families”
executive order, aiming to enhance school choice by redirecting federal
funds to support charter schools and voucher programs. This policy
enables parents to use public funds for private and religious school
tuition. While proponents claim that this legislation empowers parents
and fosters competition, in reality, it is a calculated effort to defund
and privatize public education, undermining it as a democratizing
public good. As part of a broader far right assault on education, this
policy redirects essential resources away from public schools, deepening
educational inequality and advancing an agenda that seeks to erode
public investment in a just and equitable society.
In the name of eliminating radical indoctrination in schools, a third executive order,
which purportedly aims at ending antisemitism, threatens to deport
pro-Palestinian student protesters by revoking their visas, warning that even those legally in the country could be targeted
for their political views. In a stark display of authoritarianism,
Trump’s executive order unapologetically stated that free speech would
not be tolerated. Reuters
made this clear in reporting that one fact sheet ominously declared: “I
will … quickly cancel the student visas of all Hamas sympathizers on
college campuses, which have been infested with radicalism like never
before. To all the resident aliens who joined in the pro-jihadist
protests, we put you on notice: come 2025, we will find you, and we will
deport you.”
By gutting federal oversight, he is handing the fate of education to
reactionary state legislatures and corporate interests, ensuring that
knowledge is shaped by a state held captive by billionaires and far
right extremists. This is the logic of authoritarianism: to hollow out
democratic institutions and replace education with white Christian
propaganda and a pedagogy of repression. At issue here is an attempt to
render an entire generation defenseless against the very forces seeking
to dominate them.
What we are witnessing is not just an educational crisis but a
full-scale war on institutions that not only defend democracy but enable
it. What is under siege in this attack is not only the critical
function of education but the very notion that it should be defined
through its vision of creating a central feature of democracy, educating
informed and critically engaged citizens.
These executive actions represent an upgraded and broader version of
McCarthyite and apartheid-era education that seeks to dictate how
schools teach about race and gender, funnel more taxpayer dollars into
private institutions, and deport Palestinian protesters. The irony is
striking: The White House defends these regressive measures of
sanitizing history, stripping away the rights of transgender students
and erasing critical race theory as efforts to “end indoctrination in
American education.” In truth, this is not about the pursuit of freedom
or open inquiry, nor is it about fostering an education that cultivates
informed, critically engaged citizens. At its core, this agenda is a
deliberate attack on education as a public good — one that threatens to
dismantle not only public institutions, but the very essence of public
and higher education and its culture of criticism and democracy. The
urgency of this moment cannot be overstated: The future of education
itself is at stake.
In the raging currents of contemporary political and cultural life,
where fascist ideologies are rising, one of the most insidious and
all-encompassing forces at play is the violence of forgetting — a plague
of historical amnesia. This phenomenon, which I have referred to as “organized forgetting,”
describes the systemic erasure of history and its violent consequences,
particularly in the public sphere. This is especially evident in the
current historical moment, when books are banned in
libraries, public schools and higher education across countries, such
as the United States, Hungary, India, China and Russia. Ignoring past
atrocities, historical injustices and uncomfortable truths about a
society’s foundation is not merely an oversight — it constitutes an
active form of violence that shapes both our collective consciousness
and political realities. What we are witnessing here is an assault by
the far right on memory that is inseparable from what Maximillian
Alvarez describes as a battle over power — over who is remembered, who
is erased, who is cast aside and who is forcibly reduced to something
less than human. This struggle is not just about history; it is about
whose stories are allowed to shape the present and the future. Alvarez captures this reality with striking clarity and is worth quoting at length:
Among the prizes at stake in the endless war of politics is history
itself. The battle for power is always a battle to determine who gets
remembered, how they will be recalled, where and in what forms their
memories will be preserved. In this battle, there is no room for neutral
parties: every history and counter-history must fight and scrap and
claw and spread and lodge itself in the world, lest it be forgotten or
forcibly erased. All history, in this sense, is the history of empire — a
bid for control of that greatest expanse of territory, the past.
Organized forgetting also helped fuel the resurgence of Donald Trump,
as truth and reason are being systematically replaced by lies,
corruption, denial and the weaponization of memory itself. A culture of
questioning, critique and vision is not simply disappearing in the
United States — it is actively maligned, disparaged and replaced by a
darkness that, as Ezra Klein
observes, is “stupefyingly vast, stretching from self-destructive
incompetence to muddling incoherence to authoritarian consolidation.”
This erosion affects institutions of law, civil society and education
— pillars that rely on memory, informed judgment and evidence to foster
historical understanding and civic responsibility. The attack on the
common good goes beyond the distractions of an “attention economy”designed
to distort reality; it reflects a deliberate effort to sever the ties
between history and meaning. Time is reduced to fragmented episodes,
stripped of the shared narratives that connect the past, present and
future.
This crisis embodies a profound collapse of memory, history,
education and democracy itself. A culture of manufactured ignorance —
rooted in the rejection of history, facts and critical thought — erases
accountability for electing a leader who incited insurrection and
branded his opponents as “enemies from within.” Such authoritarian
politics thrive on historical amnesia, lulling society into passivity,
eroding collective memory and subverting civic agency. This is
epitomized by Trump’s declaration
on “Fox & Friends” that he would punish schools that teach students
accurate U.S. history, including about slavery and racism in the
country. The call to silence dangerous memories is inseparable from the
violence of state terrorism — a force that censors and dehumanizes
dissent, escalating to the punishment, torture and imprisonment of
truth-tellers and critics who dare to hold oppressive power accountable.
At its core, the violence of forgetting operates through the denial
and distortion of historical events, particularly those that challenge
the dominant narratives of power. From the colonial atrocities and the
struggles for civil rights to the history of Palestine-Israel relations,
many of the most significant chapters of history are either glossed
over or erased altogether. This strategic omission serves the interests
of those in power, enabling them to maintain control by silencing
inconvenient truths. As the historian Timothy Snyder
reminds us, by refusing to acknowledge the violence of the past,
society makes it far easier to perpetuate injustices in the present. The
politics of organized forgetting, the censoring of history and the
attack on historical consciousness are fundamental to the rise of far
right voices in the U.S. and across the world.
With the rise of regressive memory laws, designed to repress what
authoritarian governments consider dangerous and radical interpretations
of a country’s past, historical consciousness is transformed into a
form of historical amnesia. One vivid example of a regressive memory law
was enacted by Trump during his first term. The 1776 Report,
which right-wingers defended as a “restoration of American education,”
was in fact an attempt to eliminate from the teaching of history any
reference to a legacy of colonialism, slavery and movements which
highlighted elements of American history that were unconscionable,
anti-democratic and morally repugnant. Snyder highlights the emergence
of memory laws in a number of states. He writes in a 2021 New York Times article:
As of this writing, five states (Idaho, Iowa, Tennessee, Texas and
Oklahoma) have passed laws that direct and restrict discussions of
history in classrooms. The Department of Education of a sixth (Florida)
has passed guidelines with the same effect. Another 12 state
legislatures are still considering memory laws. The particulars of these
laws vary. The Idaho law is the most Kafkaesque in its censorship: It
affirms freedom of speech and then bans divisive speech. The Iowa law
executes the same totalitarian pirouette. The Tennessee and Texas laws
go furthest in specifying what teachers may and may not say. In
Tennessee teachers must not teach that the rule of law is “a series of
power relationships and struggles among racial or other groups.”… The
Idaho law mentions Critical Race Theory; the directive from the Florida
school board bans it in classrooms. The Texas law forbids teachers from
requiring students to understand the 1619 Project. It is a perverse
goal: Teachers succeed if students do not understand something.
A major aspect of this forgetting and erasure of historical memory is the role of ignorance,
which has become not just widespread but weaponized in modern times.
Ignorance, particularly in U.S. society, has shifted from being a
passive lack of knowledge to an active refusal to engage with critical
issues. This is amplified by the spectacle-driven nature of contemporary
media and the increasing normalization of a culture of lies and the
embrace of a language of violence, which not only thrives on distraction
rather than reflection, but has become a powerful force for spreading
bigotry, racial hatred and right-wing lies. In addition, the mainstream
media’s obsession with spectacle — be it political drama, celebrity
culture or sensationalist stories — often overshadows the more
important, yet less glamorous, discussions about historical violence and
systemic injustice.
This intellectual neglect allows for a dangerous cycle to persist,
where the erasure of history enables the continuation of violence and
oppression. Systems of power benefit from this amnesia, as it allows
them to maintain the status quo without having to answer for past
wrongs. When society refuses to remember or address past injustices —
whether it’s slavery, imperialism or economic exploitation — those in
power can continue to exploit the present without fear of historical
accountability.
To strip education of its critical power is to rob democracy of its transformative potential.
The cultural impact of this organized forgetting is profound. Not
only does it create a void in public memory, but it also stunts
collective growth. Without the lessons of the past, it becomes nearly
impossible to learn from mistakes and address the root causes of social
inequalities. The failure to remember makes it harder to demand
meaningful change, while reproducing and legitimating ongoing far right
assaults on democracy.
The violence of organized forgetting is not a mere act of neglect; it
is a deliberate cultural and intellectual assault that undercuts the
foundations of any meaningful democracy. By erasing the past, society
implicitly condones the ongoing oppression of marginalized groups and
perpetuates harmful ideologies that thrive in ignorance. This erasure
silences the voices of those who have suffered — denying them the space
to speak their truth and demand justice. It is not limited to historical
injustices alone; it extends to the present, silencing those who
courageously criticize contemporary violence, such as Israel’s
U.S.-backed genocidal war on Gaza, and those brave enough to hold power
accountable.
The act of forgetting is not passive; it actively supports systems of
oppression and censorship, muffling dissent and debate, both of which
are essential for a healthy democracy.
Equally dangerous is the form of historical amnesia that has come to
dominate our contemporary political and cultural landscape. This
organized forgetting feeds into a pedagogy of manufactured ignorance
that prioritizes emotion over reason and spectacle over truth. In this
process, history is fragmented and distorted, making it nearly
impossible to construct a coherent understanding of the past. As a
result, public institutions — particularly education — are undermined,
as critical thinking and social responsibility give way to shallow,
sensationalized narratives. Higher education, once a bastion for the
development of civic literacy and the moral imperative of understanding
our role as both individuals and social agents, is now attacked by
forces seeking to cleanse public memory of past social and political
progress. Figures like Trump embody this threat, working to erase the
memory of strides made in the name of equality, justice and human
decency. This organized assault on historical memory and intellectual
rigor strikes at the heart of democracy itself. When we allow the
erasure of history and the undermining of critical thought, we risk
suffocating the ideals that democracy promises: justice, equality and
accountability.
A democracy cannot thrive in the absence of informed and engaged
agents that are capable of questioning, challenging and reimagining a
future different from the present. Without such citizens, the very
notion of democracy becomes a hollow, disembodied ideal — an illusion of
freedom without the substance of truth or responsibility. Education, in
this context, is not merely a tool for transmitting knowledge; it is
the foundation and bedrock of political consciousness. To be educated,
to be a citizen, is not a neutral or passive state — it is a vital,
active political and moral engagement with the world, grounded in
critical thinking and democratic possibility. It is a recognition that
the act of learning and the act of being a citizen are inextricable from
each other. To strip education of its critical power is to rob
democracy of its transformative potential.
Confronting the violence of forgetting requires a shift in how we
engage with history. Intellectuals, educators and activists must take up
the responsibility of reintroducing the painful truths of the past into
public discourse. This is not about dwelling in the past for its own
sake, but about understanding its relevance to the present and future.
To break the cycles of violence, society must commit to remembering, not
just for the sake of memory, but as a critical tool for progress.
Moreover, engaging with history honestly requires recognizing that
the violence of forgetting is not a one-time event but a continual
process. Systems of power don’t simply forget; they actively work to
erase, rewrite and sanitize historical narratives. This means that the
fight to remember is ongoing and requires constant vigilance. It’s not
enough to simply uncover historical truths; society must work to ensure
that these truths are not forgotten again, buried under the weight of
media spectacles, ideological repression and political theater.
Ultimately, the violence of forgetting is an obstacle to genuine
social change. Without confronting the past — acknowledging the violence
and injustices that have shaped our world — we cannot hope to build a
more just and informed future. To move forward, any viable democratic
social order must reckon with its past, break free from the bonds of
ignorance, and commit to creating a future based on knowledge, justice
and accountability.
The task of confronting and dismantling the violent structures shaped
by the power of forgetting is immense, yet the urgency has never been
more pronounced. In an era where the scope and power of new pedagogical
apparatuses such as social media and AI dominate our cultural and
intellectual landscapes, the challenge becomes even more complex. While
they hold potential for education and connection, these technologies are
controlled by a reactionary ruling class of financial elite and
billionaires, and they are increasingly wielded to perpetuate
disinformation, fragment history and manipulate public discourse. The
authoritarian algorithms that drive these platforms increasingly
prioritize sensationalism over substance, lies over truth, the
appropriation of power over social responsibility, and in doing so,
reinforce modes of civic illiteracy, while attacking those fundamental
institutions which enable critical perspectives and a culture of
questioning.
The vital need for collective action and intellectual engagement to
reclaim and restore historical truth, critical thinking and social
responsibility is urgent. The present historical moment, both
unprecedented and alarming, resonates with Antonio Gramsci’s reflection
on an earlier era marked by the rise of fascism: “The old world is
dying, and the new world struggles to be born; now is the time of
monsters.”
In the face of a deepening crisis of history, memory and agency, any
meaningful resistance must be collective, disruptive and
unapologetically unsettling — challenging entrenched orthodoxies and
dismantling the forces that perpetuate ignorance and injustice. This
struggle needs to be both radical in its essence and uncompromising in
its demands for social change, recognizing education as inseparable from
politics and the tangible challenges people face in their everyday
lives. In this collective effort lies the power to dismantle the
barriers to truth, rebuild the foundations of critical thought, and
shape a future rooted in knowledge, justice and a profound commitment to
make power accountable. Central to this vision is the capacity to learn
from history, to nurture a historical consciousness that informs our
present and to reimagine agency as an essential force in the enduring
struggle for democracy. This call for a radical imagination cannot be
confined to classrooms but must emerge as a transformative force
embedded in a united, multiracial, working-class movement. Only then can
we confront the urgent crises of our time.
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While some Democratic officials in Congress have protested this action by DOGE, there has been little resistance otherwise.
DOGE consists of Elon Musk and several young men who have been tasked to reduce the federal budget by at least $1 Trillion. The US Senate has oversight of the Department of Education through the HELP (Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions) Committee, but Republicans, who are led by President Trump, control the Senate, and appear to be supporting these aggressive measures.
While Mr. Musk has claimed that the Department of Education no longer exists, its website is still operating.
Why did so many working-class voters support Republicans over Democrats in the 2024 elections? Was the problem simply 'messaging', or have Democrats entrenched themselves as the party of corporate elites and Wall Street? What can Democrats do to win back this crucial demographic and how do we define (or re-define) the working-class? Will Democrats make a strong commitment to economic populism to reverse this class dealignment?
Moderated by Samir Sonti - Assistant Professor, CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies.
What are the real costs to bear on workers–especially civil service and public sector workers – with Project 2025 and the establishment of Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency? What strategies can labor employ to counter this attack on working people and unions? How can looking back at previous far right policy projects help prepare us in our fight to protect workers? Join us to hear from law & policy experts and journalists as they discuss these urgent questions.
