United States: fearing revival of student protests, universities attack free speech rights

University administrations, under intense pressure from their billionaire donors, are cracking down on pro-Palestine students and faculty on campuses across America. They’ve introduced draconian measures aimed at extinguishing the embers of last spring’s Palestine solidarity encampment movement, which sought to force colleges and universities to divest from Israel and the American imperialist war machine.

[Originally published at communistusa.org]

Universities across the country are spending big money to bolster campus security. But when it comes to providing for students and staff, administrations claim the coffers are empty. The capitalists exert tremendous financial pressure on universities, dictating that they follow the mantra: Millions for weapons! Not one cent for workers and students!

American universities are tied to imperialism by a thousand and one financial threads. To combat this wave of repression, students need to wage a struggle not only against the symptoms of capitalism on campus and around the world, but also against the entire capitalist system itself.

Intensifying witch hunts

To combat this wave of repression, students need to wage a struggle not only against the symptoms of capitalism, but also against the entire capitalist system itself / Image: RCA

Professors across the country face firing for speaking out against the ongoing genocidal slaughter in Palestine. Professor Katherine Franke of Columbia, epicenter of the encampment movement, is fighting for her job after she was interviewed about a Zionist chemical attack on pro-Palestine students. The law firm she hired dropped her case because she was “too controversial.”  Stephen Thrasher, a journalism professor at Northwestern, was suspended after being called out by name in a congressional committee for trying to protect students from police repression at a Palestine-solidarity demonstration.

At the University of California, the administration banned facemasks to prevent protestors from concealing their identity. These shameless bureaucrats are pushing to use university funds to prosecute pro-Palestine students, who are already victims of doxxing attacks by Zionists.

Throughout the UC system, pro-Palestine activists are facing a slew of legal and disciplinary charges. Over 200 students were arrested last spring, and the university threatened to withhold degrees and academic records from 55 of them. At Columbia, students who attended last spring’s protests continue to face disciplinary measures, including expulsion.

Attacks on freedom of speech

Student conduct codes have been rewritten to equate criticism of Zionism with antisemitism. At NYU, students can now be disciplined under the school’s “nondiscrimination and anti-harassment policy” for using the words “Zionist” or “Zionism.” Despite paying lip service to the importance of free speech, NYU administrators have imposed severe restrictions on protests, banning any demonstrations disrupting “university activities and running afoul of University policies.”

At Drexel University in Philadelphia, the administration banned encampments and “unregistered or unauthorized . . . campus teach-ins, rallies, and protests,” while claiming, “These guidelines do not limit free speech or peaceful protest.”

To prevent a resurgence of the encampment movement, universities are implementing draconian security measures / Image: Irisoptical, Wikimedia Commons

Meanwhile, Indiana University has instituted a wide-ranging new “expressive activities” policy in response to the encampments, limiting when, where, and how students can exercise the First Amendment on campus. The rules include a ban on “expressive activity” between the hours of 11 p.m. and 6 a.m., combined with across-the-board raises for campus security officers, and the appointment of a new FBI-trained chief enforcement officer for good measure.

As we explained last spring, free speech and capitalism are incompatible. You have freedom of speech, as long as you don’t threaten the interests of the ruling class. That’s what these new campus measures represent: you can practice your right to free speech—unless you say something we don’t like.

Militarization of campuses

The rotten ties between universities and the capitalist state have been laid bare. Last spring, tens of thousands of students learned a crucial lesson about the real purpose of the state—to defend the interests of the ruling class and private property. At encampment after encampment, students faced the most violent repression, with thousands arrested and hundreds injured.

Now, students are learning this lesson again in a different form. To prevent a resurgence of the encampment movement, universities are implementing draconian security measures. But unlike the violent raids we witnessed last spring, these measures involve the increased presence of campus security and police forces to deter students from mobilizing.

Columbia’s campus has been militarized. As the school year began, students were welcomed back to classes with NYPD arrests. The university’s lawns, once open to the public, are now fenced off. Private security kiosks litter the campus.

The University of California Board of Regents approved a plan to further arm UCLA campus police with weapons classified as “military equipment” under California law. A UC spokesperson said:

The University’s use of this equipment provides UC police officers with non-lethal alternatives to standard-issue firearms, enabling them to de-escalate situations and respond without the use of deadly force.

This is beyond laughable. These are the same campus goons who cheerfully teamed up with Zionists to attack peaceful pro-Palestine protesters in May. To describe the arming of these thugs with military weapons as a means of de-escalation is the most blatant doublespeak.

University administrations are spending vast sums to expand security forces on campus. One student said, “I am outraged that the University of California is prioritizing funding for military equipment while slashing resources for education.” There is nothing new under the sun! From colleges to Congress, the ruling class is spending money on weapons to hurt and maim young people—whether on the local campus or halfway across the world.

Police and universities are openly discussing how to best repress students. In New York, NYPD representatives met with administrators of higher learning institutions to discuss contingency plans for future student militancy. In one phone call, New York Governor Kathy Hochul spoke with over 200 university leaders to “reinforce the importance of emergency plans ahead of students returning to campus for the fall semester.” Translated into plain English: If students act up again when the semester starts, we all need to be ready to arrest and brutalize them.

The ruling class has been conspiring for nearly a year to pressure university administrators into calling in shock troops to repress students. As the Washington Post reported, after October 7, “More than a dozen members of … Forbes’s annual list of billionaires [and] others [who] work in real estate, finance, and communications” created a group chat. These big bourgeois conspired with each other to wield, “Their money and power in an effort to shape American views of the Gaza war, as well as the actions of academic, business, and political leaders.” They had a Zoom call with New York Mayor Eric Adams and convinced him to send the NYPD to crush the Columbia and CCNY encampments, which he did on April 30, sending an army of riot police in a coordinated assault against both encampments.

Student movements need to understand the deep-rooted links between imperialism and their universities / Image: Pamela Drew, Flickr

Even university presidents who gladly called in the forces of the state to crush the encampments, like Columbia’s “Baroness” Minouche Shafik, have been forced to resign over the summer. Communists don’t shed a tear for any of the old money bourgeois and petty-bourgeois “baronesses” who oversaw the violent repression of thousands of students. But sacking these administrators reveals that the ruling class was not satisfied with their handling of the movement.

The truth is, the capitalists saw these administrators as incompetent fools who hesitated to call in police to beat and arrest students. They want fully obedient lackeys who will take the harshest measures. As early as October of last year, wealthy donors threatened to withhold their money if universities didn’t clamp down on pro-Palestine activists.

A thousand and one threads

Universities are nothing more than capitalist corporations. That’s why the ruling class can dictate university policy. Investors buy up university bonds and assets and repackage them for sale to the highest bidder. Investors then get seats on university boards of trustees. On Monday, they’ll go to a Lockheed Martin board meeting, and on Tuesday, they’ll sit on your universities’ board of trustees.

Even public universities cannot escape the grip of capital. Before the 1960s, both CUNY and the UC systems were tuition-free. The global crisis of capitalism in the mid-1970s brought massive austerity. State funding for public universities drastically diminished. States imposed tuition to make up for the loss of state funding. Since then, demand for a college education has only increased, and administrations across the country have gradually raised tuition every year. The last 40 years have seen a 1,360% increase in UC tuition and a 600% increase at CUNY. Very few students can afford these exorbitant prices, so they’re forced to take on student loans.

Eventually, universities turned to issuing bonds to raise money from private investors. Since they have successfully increased tuition every year without falls in revenue, these bonds are an incredibly safe investment. But to ensure their bonds continue to attract investors, universities must repay bondholders before spending money on anything else. That means that paying off investors is far more important than providing for faculty and students. This explains why universities increasingly rely on low-paid adjuncts, over half of whom live under the poverty line.

Through these ties—and by “generous” endowment fattening donations—the ruling class is able to influence higher education institutions to enact policies that favor the ruling class, including militarizing campuses. But this is not just a problem limited to colleges and universities. Our entire society is controlled by Wall Street and billionaires.

The root cause

University administrators are stocking their arsenals to repress future student movements. They are not blind to class tensions in society. They see increasing instability ahead. The coming years will be punctuated by predatory imperialist wars, environmental disasters, and sharp declines in living standards. These factors—combined with escalating tuition fees, record-breaking profits, underpaid staff, and inadequate education—will transform universities into powder kegs for social unrest. Administrations are preparing to rely on brute force to suppress future student movements.

These student movements must take a serious materialist approach. They need to understand the deep-rooted links between imperialism and their universities. Capitalism in its death agony has nothing to offer humanity except parasitism, wars, and genocide. Violent repression on and off campuses will only increase as social unrest grows.

Students must fight back along class lines. This means organizing a wider struggle uniting students and workers against capitalism. It means fighting to take the wealth stolen from the working class and using it to fund free education, healthcare, and other social necessities. It means fighting for communism.