The protection of academic freedom and the free pursuit of truth and knowledge are critical to fostering excellence in our colleges and universities, and the critical and creative thinking cultivated in higher education are key contributors to a vibrant participatory democracy. 

The American Pragmatist philosopher John Dewey (1859-1952), who as a religious humanist was a close friend of the Unitarian movement, was a staunch defender of academic freedom and recognized its importance for the integrity of higher education and for freedom and democracy in general. in 1915, Dewey was one of the founders of the American Association of University Professors, and this organization has worked ever since to protect academic freedom and academic tenure. Dewey recognized that without protected academic freedom, the ideological whims of persons with money and power could easily threaten the independence and integrity of our institutions of higher learning. 

It is difficult to overestimate the importance of education for the well-being of a functioning and flourishing democratic society. Education is one of the foundational elements of a just and participatory society, and it is a key aspect of working towards the goal of equality of opportunity for all persons.

We know from the evidence that the happiest, least corrupt, best educated, most healthy, most free, most sustainable, and most flourishing societies all embrace and support pluralism of thought, speech, and action. The coordinated and sustained attack on educators and education in the United States is a threat to pluralism of thought, speech, and action. In other words, it is a threat to freedom and human flourishing.

The goal of education is not simply acquisition of knowledge, information, or employment. The goal of education is the cultivation of wisdom, which is the synthesis of knowledge, virtue, and justice for the flourishing of all. It is critical to keep this goal of wisdom in mind, especially given the coordinated efforts to reduce all education to job preparation. Education is not only about preparing us for labor and work within our economy, it is also about preparing us for free and participatory action within our shared world.

Higher education has always been under pressure from a variety of ideological forces within our society, but the current situation represents an existential threat to the integrity of higher education and its ability to be a force for good and progress within our democratic republic in its work to cultivate an informed and engaged citizenry for a vibrant and participatory democracy 

The current fascist regime is making a direct assault on academic freedom and the freedom of speech and expression at our colleges and universities. The regime is attempting to control the research and teaching agenda by defunding institutions of higher education that do not bow down to its ideological demands. Not only that, the fascist regime is now revoking student visas and abducting, detaining, and deporting students from our colleges and universities who have expressed criticism of the government of Israel and its genocidal actions in Gaza. 

Defending higher education from the barrage of attacks from American fascism does not mean ignoring the ongoing problems and deficiencies in higher education in the United States. We have serious problems with access and affordability, and student debt has gotten out of control, placing students in a situation of debt servitude for large portions of their lives. We also are plagued by increasing corporate control of colleges and universities and decreased funding for publicly supported higher education, with increasing reliance on student fees, private donors, and corporate money. Given the small percentage of the operating expenses of publicly supported universities actually being covered by public funds, it almost doesn’t make sense to call them public anymore. 

But in spite of all of the problems with higher education in the United States, students from all over the world have been attracted to U.S. American higher education because of its quality, the many opportunities for groundbreaking and innovative research, and the freedom of thought, expression, and action they could experience while studying here. The current administration is diminishing everything that attracts international students to come study in the United States and is making it dangerous for many to do so, and many international students and scholars are already deciding to go elsewhere. Instead of the steady brain gain that we have experienced for many decades, we are now experiencing a brain drain – and not only in relation to international students, but also with many U.S. American academics finding better research opportunities and greater academic freedom outside of the United States. This will make our country much less creative and much less innovative and will have lasting negative effects on the quality of life in our society.

It is an evil and intolerable situation for international students at our colleges and universities to be abducted, detained, and deported for using their right to think freely, speak freely, and act freely in ways that are doing no harm to others; but this is the situation we currently face as American fascism attempts to assert its control over our colleges and universities, the students who attend them, and the faculty who teach and do research at them. 

In a tragic twist of history, Columbia University, the very university where the champion of academic freedom John Dewey taught most of his career, has become the first university to capitulate to the ideological demands of our current fascist regime. American fascists would like the capitulation of Columbia University to Trump’s demands to be the first of many dominoes to fall. American fascists are already extorting other universities like Northwestern University and Cornell University in order to force their obedience to their ideological demands. Higher education leaders across the country must build a wall of resistance so that not one more domino will fall to the bullying of a fascist regime. In the end, it is better to lose funding than to become puppet institutions for fascism.

We cannot allow fhe false identification of all criticisms of the Israeli government as antisemitism to be a catalyst for fascist repression in the United States. Nor can we let it be used as an excuse for Epistemicide, the killing of knowledge. We are witnessing the killing of knowledge across various sectors of our society in the attempt by American fascism to make the United States more white and more fundamentalist Christian again. 

It would be difficult enough for many colleges and universities to weather the recession we will most likely experience in the very near future, but when you couple this with the current direct attacks on higher education, it is tragically the case that a significant number of our campuses will have difficulty surviving the next few years, but our colleges and universities must not lose their souls for the sake of survival. 

But institutions of higher education cannot fend off these fascist attacks on their academic freedom and integrity alone. They need all those who believe in the importance of knowledge and wisdom to join in the resistance to keep our colleges and universities from becoming puppets controlled by the ideological strings of a deeply racist and fascist regime. Let us join the ongoing efforts to keep their hands off higher education for the sake of preserving a just and participatory democracy for us all. 

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