OPINION:
The upheaval happening on college campuses today is no accident. It is the fruition of a long-standing trend toward Marxist indoctrination in our universities.
For decades, elite institutions such as Columbia, Harvard, Yale, MIT and Princeton have favored applicants who display the appropriate “social justice” opinions and hired faculty who promote these ideals. They have solidified this mindset by pushing the language of identity and the “oppressed vs. oppressor” narrative. Few have played a greater role in this transformation of education than a little-known Brazilian educator named Paulo Freire.
Freire transformed modern education by emphasizing the importance of political education. He believed true education was not just about passing on facts and information but rather about empowering individuals to challenge “oppressive systems” and work toward social change.
Through his influential work, such as “Pedagogy of the Oppressed,” Freire challenged traditional teaching methods. He advocated a more “participatory and democratic” approach to education that de-emphasized reading, writing and arithmetic in favor of encouraging students to become “agents of change in their communities.” He showed that education is a powerful tool for Marxist transformation. His impact on education continues to be felt worldwide.
Instead of fostering critical thinking and open-mindedness, his ideas have led to a narrow-minded and often destructive mentality in some students. This has far-reaching consequences, as seen in the current issue surrounding Israel and the Palestinians.
My heart aches for the Jewish students who, in 2024, in America no less, are living in fear on their own campuses. We have reached a point where Rabbi Elie Buechler of Columbia University has advised Jewish students to stay home because the university and the police cannot guarantee their safety.
How have American Jews found themselves caught up in this turmoil? It is no surprise, as the left has labeled Israel as the “oppressor” in the narrative of the Middle East. And it seems not to matter that just a few months ago, on Oct. 7, Hamas terrorists attacked Israel and massacred 1,200 people, the majority of whom were innocent civilians, including women and children. But this is what happens when a simplistic “us vs. them” ideology prevails and justifies any cruelty.
The version of Marxism that is now rampant on our campuses has evolved from its original economic roots, first formulated by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels’ “The Communist Manifesto,” published in 1848. Katharine Cornell Gorka and Mike Gonzalez have titled their latest book “NextGen Marxism” because what they see now has undergone a cultural transformation in Europe and has been further distorted here in the United States, with other elements such as race, sex and climate being added.
But make no mistake: The “oppressor vs. oppressed” paradigm is the essence of Marxism. In the opening lines of “The Communist Manifesto,” Marx and Engels state that “the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles,” and they proceed to list various groups as the oppressed and their oppressors. This mentality has been dressed up in the language of “social justice” by the revolutionaries who seek to fundamentally change our society, as President Barack Obama famously promised.
But we must be wary of this “social justice” idea because the goal is not to improve the lives of those they claim to help. In fact, many Marxists have realized that capitalism actually improves the lives of the poor. For example, Max Horkheimer, the German intellectual who devised the culturally Marxist critical theory approach, stated in 1969 that capitalism does not impoverish workers but helps them toward a better life.
But here in America, the torch of revolution has been passed to racial and sexual minority groups who are deemed by the Marxists as the “most oppressed” and, therefore, the most deserving of a revolution. This is evident in the Black Lives Matter movement, whose leaders openly state that their goal is societal reconstitution. These leaders are all self-proclaimed Marxists, and their ideology is deeply rooted in the American version of critical theory known as critical race theory.
Yet these so-called revolutionaries fail to see that capitalism is not the enemy. Melina Abdullah, the head of Black Lives Matter Grassroots, went as far as to say that “when we feed capitalism, we feed racism” and claimed that “White capitalism feeds itself through the exploitation of Africa and Black people.” It is no surprise that this movement, fueled by Marxist ideas, has found a common cause with the Palestinian cause and views Israel as an oppressor.
It is a sad reality that universities have allowed this poison to seep into their halls, and now we see the dire consequences in 2024. Perhaps it is time to reconsider where our tax dollars are going and demand that these universities cleanse themselves of this destructive ideology and cease educating students into imbecility.
• Project 21 member Craig DeLuz is the founder of the Uncommon Sense Media Group. He has almost 30 years in media, political advocacy, policy analysis and grassroots activism. He is president and CEO of 2A News Corp. as well as spokesman for the California Republican Assembly, the Golden State’s largest and fastest-growing Republican volunteer organization.
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