September 28 - The Radical Caucus of the Modern Languages Association (MLA) held an online conference, “Keywords: Complicity,” to examine how U.S. university administrations are now in full complicity with the Israeli-U.S. war machine, repressing pro-Palestinian campus protests. But it is not just now. Universities have always done the bidding of U.S. imperialism. They do war research, they host ROTC military officer training programs and they promote the so-called wonders of U.S. foreign policy. This is no accident as their Boards of Trustees are controlled by rich capitalists and powerful politicians. These ruling class controlled universities are systematically attacking radical faculty on a scale not seen since the anti-communist purges of the Cold War McCarthyism of the 1950s.
The conference started with the image of a tent in Gaza, with the words, “Thank You Columbia Students,” painted on the side, an image of international solidarity honoring the student protests. As more and more wars involving the world’s imperialist powers lead ever closer to world war, this kind of international solidarity is an important step in getting rid of capitalism once and for all with working class power. That’s communism.
Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members have been organizers in the Radical Caucus for many years and new members have joined PLP through this work. Many organizers joined the Caucus at the January MLA convention, where we successfully passed an anti-Zionist resolution. With another group, we are bringing a resolution on BDS (the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign) at the next MLA convention in January.
Campus bosses back genocide
University bosses became accomplices in Israeli/U.S. genocide by attacking anti-war protests. Pro-Zionist organizations like the Academic Engagement Network (academicengagement.org) are often leading the national repression with plans that include new codes of conduct based on regulating the “time, place and manner” of campus protests. Federal, state, and local politicians push campus administrators to punish protesters with the lie that anti-Zionism equals antisemitism. Administrators are also under pressure from big donors and boards of trustees.
The rulers are demanding that their universities fall in line behind the imperialist genocide, while students and faculty are waging class war against capitalist control of our teaching, learning and action. As protests have grown university administrations have responded with more repression. Their liberal mask is slipping off, revealing the fascism needed to silence protest and wage wider wars.
Worker-Student Alliance Is key
The first speaker, a historian, showed how McCarthyism set a precedent for the current attacks on pro-Palestinian protest, and told how at Yeshiva University this year the dean put pressure on the entire faculty to sign on to the Academic Engagement Network statement against BDS. Protesters have dubbed California State University “Boeing University” because of its severe repression and close ties to the warmaker aerospace corporation. The speaker told of their efforts to link up students and faculty with union workers in the Labor for Palestine coalition. The next panelist said that Indiana University was punishing faculty, including himself, so that the Board of Trustees could turn out “workers, not thinkers.”
A colleague from New York University described his campus as a national leader in repression, with 150 student arrests, tighter campus “security” and working with the Academic Engagement Network. At the University of Michigan a “farcical” policy banned poster images, the word “Palestine,” and even the name of the panelist on flyers announcing her lecture!
No war but class war!
A National Day of Action is planned on April 17, with 100 campuses already organizing for it, and everyone will join the Caucus push for a BDS resolution at the next MLA convention. A prominent Marxist scholar called for a worker-student alliance to take on the campus repressive apparatus.
The universities pose as havens of free expression and higher learning. Actually they are part of U.S. capitalism with a higher dose of brainwashing. As the imperialist powers (U.S., China, Russia) head closer to world war, the universities cast aside their “neutrality” and become more open agents of U.S. imperialism. PLP fights for the working class to take power from the bosses with communist revolution. In all our work, we must raise that goal and build the Party. No war but class war!
