Oppose the pro-genocide purge on American college campuses!

In response to student and faculty outrage over the ongoing genocide in Gaza, a veritable purge is taking place on college campuses across the United States. Governments suspend, expel, dismiss, and otherwise trample on the democratic rights of teachers and students protesting the ongoing slaughter.

NYPD officers detain a pro-Palestinian supporter as they hold a picket line outside Barnard College, Tuesday, September 3, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

This crackdown is taking place at some of the country’s most prestigious universities, which have close ties to the Democratic Party. Last Friday, some 25 Harvard University faculty members were suspended from Widener Library for two weeks after staging a silent “study” protest in solidarity with students who had been suspended for holding a similar protest the month before fed.

Banning teachers from the library for simply displaying pieces of paper with innocuous wording such as “Embrace diverse perspectives” is an unprecedented act of disciplinary action. Harvard cited “library policy” to justify excluding faculty members from the institution’s main library, which would severely impact their ability to do their own work.

In addition to more than twenty teachers, according to The Harvard Crimson, more than sixty students who previously held a silent ‘study-in’ against the genocide at the Widener Library have also been banned from the main campus library for two weeks.

Similar anti-democratic measures are underway on many other campuses:

At the University of Pittsburghat least 17 students and community members are being prosecuted for their participation in Gaza Solidarity camps. After police attacked the encampments, arrested protesters face exaggerated charges, including felonies. They have also had “persona non grata” orders issued against them, effectively banning them from the University of Pittsburgh campus.
At the University of Chicago last week, university officials sent police to expel and suspend an Arab student who had participated in an anti-genocide protest earlier this month. Megan Porter, the student’s attorney, told a local news outlet that although her client has not been convicted of a crime, he has been removed from campus. Porter added that he has no family in the state and has nowhere else to live.
Bee Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania, Dr. Maura Finkelstein, who is Jewish herself, was fired for posting comments on social media opposing Zionism and the ongoing genocide. Interviewed earlier this month by the Socialist World WebsiteFinkelstein noted, “Our campuses are being militarized.”
Bee Cornell UniversityAdministrators have suspended four students for three years for their involvement in a pro-Palestinian protest on September 18 targeting military contractors who were weaponizing the genocide. Cornell University Ph.D. Student Momodou Taal, a graduate instructor, was nearly deported earlier this month for participating in the September 18 demonstration.
At the University of California, Santa Cruzmore than 100 students and faculty have been banned from campus since they were arrested last semester for protesting the genocide in Gaza. The ACLU Foundation of Northern California and the Center for Protest Law and Litigation have filed a lawsuit against the university, arguing that the mass suspension is unconstitutional.
The University of Michigan is pursuing criminal charges against eleven students for participating in anti-war demonstrations against the war in Gaza last spring. The charges include trespassing and obstructing a police officer, a misdemeanor with possible penalties of up to two years in prison.

Many of these universities have close ties to the Democratic Party and American imperialism. The Harvard Corporation, Harvard University’s highest governing board, includes former Obama administration officials, billionaires and heads of private investment firms.

Notable Democrats currently serving on the Harvard Corporation include: Penny Sue Pritzker, billionaire heiress and U.S. Secretary of Commerce in the Obama administration; Kenneth Chenault, one of several business leaders who spoke at this year’s Democratic National Convention; and Mariano-Florentino Cuéllara, a former California Supreme Court justice who served under the Clinton and Obama administrations.

Earlier this year, Harvard University named Jennifer O’Connor as vice president and general counsel, a former executive of Northrop Grumman, the world’s sixth-largest weapons manufacturer, which supplies the Israeli air force with missile and laser systems for attack helicopters and fighter jets.

Repression on campuses is not limited to the United States. Earlier this month, riot police forcibly arrested Western Sydney University students for participating in a peaceful sit-in protest against the genocide. Following the violent arrests, hundreds of academics and teachers signed an open letter condemning police brutality. The signatories noted that the police’s violent actions are “part of a broader pattern of police repression at Australian universities against those protesting Israel’s atrocities.”

The International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) calls on students to mobilize against this escalating attack on democratic rights. Students must demand that all charges against those protesting the genocide – one of the greatest war crimes of the 21st century – be dropped. All sanctions and restrictions on students and teachers must be annulled.

Students should seek the support of workers in the factories and workplaces where colleges and universities are located to mobilize broader support, linking the defense of basic democratic rights with opposition to war abroad and the war against the working class at home .

The escalating onslaught of protests on campuses comes just a week before the US elections, which are marked by plumbing the depths of the political backlash. Trump and the Republicans are trying to build a fascist movement and have promised to mobilize the police and military against opponents of the genocide and any opposition to the policies of the corporate and financial oligarch.

The Democratic Party’s central involvement in the persecution of opposition to genocide shows that their claim to protect “democracy” is a cynical fraud. Regardless of who wins the election, if there is indeed a clear outcome, the push for dictatorship will continue, in line with the escalation of war and the extreme growth of social inequality.

The McCarthyite witch hunt of solidarity demonstrators in Gaza, the intimidation of anti-war activists and the punitive measures against protesting students and teachers are preparations for even more extensive attacks on the democratic rights of the population as a whole.

The anti-democratic methods employed by the US ruling class during McCarthy’s anti-communist witch hunts of the 1950s are being revived by all imperialist powers on a global scale. The defense of fundamental democratic rights, including the right to protest against genocide and ethnic cleansing, is inextricably linked to the development of an independent socialist movement among the working class and among youth against all imperialist wars and their source, the capitalist system.