You
should not honour men more than truth.
Plato
In the
current historical moment, education cannot surrender
to the call of academics who now claim in the age of
Trump that there is no room for politics in the classroom,
or the increasing claim by administrators that universities
have a responsibility to remain neutral. This position
is not only deeply flawed but also complicit in its
silence over the current far right politicization of
education.
The call
for neutrality in many North American universities is
a retreat from social and moral responsibility, masking
the reality that these institutions are deeply embedded
in power relations. As Heidi Matthews, Fatima Ahdash
and Priya Gupta aptly argue, neutrality “serves
to flatten politics and silence scholarly debate,”
obscuring the inherently political nature of university
life. From decisions about enrollment and research funding
to event policies and poster placements, every administrative
choice reflects a political stance. Far from apolitical,
neutrality is a tool that silences dissent and shields
power from accountability.
It is worth
repeating that the most powerful forms of education
today extend far beyond public and higher education.
With the rise of new technologies, power structures
and social media, culture itself has become a tool of
propaganda. Right-wing media, conservative foundations,
and a culture dominated by violence and reality TV created
the fertile ground for the rise of Trump and his continued
legitimacy. Propaganda machines like Fox News have fostered
an anti-intellectual climate, normalizing Trump’s
bigotry, lies, racism and history of abuse. This is
not just a political failure — it is an educational
crisis.
In the age
of new media, platforms like Elon Musk’s X and
tech giants like Facebook, Netflix and Google have become
powerful teaching machines, actively serving the far
right and promoting the values of gangster capitalism.
These companies are reshaping education, turning it
into a training ground for workers who align with their
entrepreneurial vision or, even more dangerously, perpetuating
a theocratic, ultra-nationalist agenda that views people
of color and marginalized groups as threats. This vision
of education must be rejected in the strongest terms,
for it erodes both democracy and the very purpose of
education itself.
Education,
in its truest sense, must be about more than training
students to be workers or indoctrinating them into a
white Christian nationalist view of who does and doesn’t
count as American. Education should foster intellectual
rigor and critical thinking, empowering students to
interrogate their experiences and aspirations while
equipping them with the agency to act with informed
judgment. It must be a bold and supportive space where
student voices are valued and engaged with pressing
social and political issues, cultivating a commitment
to justice, equality and freedom. In too many classrooms
in the U.S., there are efforts to make students voiceless,
which amounts to making them powerless. This must be
challenged and avoided at all times.
Critical
pedagogy must expose the false equivalence of capitalism
and democracy, emphasizing that resisting fascism requires
challenging capitalism. To be transformative, it should
embrace anti-capitalist principles, champion radical
democracy and envision political alternatives beyond
conventional ideologies.
In the face
of growing attacks on higher education, educators must
reclaim their role in shaping futures, advancing a vision
of education as integral to the struggle for democracy.
This vision rejects the neoliberal framing of education
as a private investment and instead embraces a critical
pedagogy as a practice of freedom that disrupts complacency,
fosters critical engagement, and empowers students to
confront the forces shaping their lives.
In an age
of resurgent fascism, education must do more than defend
reason and critical judgment — it must also mobilize
widespread, organized collective resistance. A number
of youth movements, from Black Lives Matter and the
Sunrise Movement to Fridays for Future and March for
Our Lives, are mobilizing in this direction. The challenge
here is to bring these movements together into one multiracial,
working-class organization.
The struggle
for a radical democracy must be anchored in the complexities
of our time — not as a fleeting sentiment but
as an active, transformative project. Democracy is not
simply voting, nor is it the sum of capitalist values
and market relations. It is an ideal and promise —
a vision of a future that does not imitate the present;
it is the lifeblood of resistance, struggle, and the
ongoing merging of justice, ethics and freedom.
In a society
where democracy is under siege, educators must recognize
that alternative futures are not only possible but that
acting on this belief is essential to achieving social
change.
The global
rise of fascism casts a long shadow, marked by state
violence, silenced dissent and the assault on critical
thought. Yet history is not a closed book — it
is a call to action, a space for possibility. Now, more
than ever, we must dare to think boldly, act courageously,
and forge the democratic futures that justice demands
and humanity deserves.
By
Henry Giroux:
Childcide
in Fascist Theocracies
The Corporate Firewall Against Truth
Assassins of Memory
Not Joe's But Our Collective Memory Issues
The
Politics of Emergency Time
Hijacking
Freedoms
America
at the Crossroads
Gangster
Capitalism
Historical
Amnesia in Age of Capitalist Apocalypse
The
Inequality of Freedom
The
Nazification of Education
Killing
Fields in Age of Mass Shootings
The
Pedagogy of Resistance
The
Death of Ethics
Banning
Books
Homage
to Paulo Freire
Plague
of Manufactured Ignorance
Racial
Cleansing and Erasing History
Plague
of Historical Amnesia
Recovering
from Trumpism
Tribute
to Noam Chomsky
The
Ouster of Trump
White
Supremacy in the Offal Office
The
Plague of Inequity
Covid
and our Embattled Society
Trump
and the Corona Death Waltz
Neoliberal
Fascism
The
Terror Unforseen
Interview
of H.A.Giroux
The
Normalization of Fascism
The
Public Intellectual II
Bertrand
Russell: Public Intellectual
Thinking
Dangerously in Dark Times
Democracy
in Exile
Authoritarianism
in America
Violence:
US Favourite Pastime
Losing
in Trump's America
In
Dark Times Teachers Matter
The
Age of Civic Illiteracy
Exile
and Disruption in the Academy
What
Society Produces a Donald Trump
From
School to the Prison Pipeline
Orwell
& Huxely
American
Sniper and Hollywood Heroism
Selfie Culture
The
Age of Disposability
In
the Shadow of the Atomic Bomb
Killing
Machines and the Madness of the Military
The
Age of Neoliberal Cruelty
The
Politics of the Deep State
Challenging
Casino Capitalism
Crisis
in Democracy
America's
Descent into Madness