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We are witnessing the rise of a unique brand of U.S. fascism, which has once again reared its ugly head and has made higher education one of its primary targets. This fascist attack on the university is made possible by the longstanding neoliberal withering of its institutions, which now rely mostly on underpaid contingent workers. The disempowerment of university labor runs hand-in-hand with a right-wing ideological front — rooted in rampant anti-intellectualism and rugged individualism — which seeks to control what knowledge universities can produce and teach. In order to counter this attack on higher education, faculty unions must scale up their organizing efforts against neoliberalism and the rising tide of fascism.
It is not surprising that former President Donald Trump accused universities of “radical left indoctrination.” It is a familiar right-wing talking point to characterize the university as a breeding ground for Marxist consciousness; a site of socialist production threatening traditional “American values” — the latter a convenient euphemism for white supremacy, anti-communism and anti-LGBTQ+ ideology.
This conspiratorial and reactionary form of politics is on the rise in Florida in particular, under Gov. Ron DeSantis. Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill and the “Stop WOKE Act” are key examples of this ideology manifesting in the form of legal fascism. DeSantis’s administration recently blocked an AP African American Studies course for state public schools, which Florida’s Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. referred to as “woke indoctrination masquerading as education,” posting an infographic that attempted to rationalize the decision by providing the names of scholars taught in the course, including Kimberlé Crenshaw, Angela Davis, bell hooks, Robin D.G. Kelley, and other prominent Black intellectuals. Diaz Jr. pointed to Davis’s affiliation with the Communist Party, for instance, and cited Kelley’s book, Hammer and Hoe, about the history of Black communists in Alabama, to justify the decision. New York Times journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones’s 1619 Project has already faced bans from the Florida education board.