Featured image, LA students walk out in protest of Trump’s immigration policy.

With the recent changes to the face of the government, attacks against students and youth movements have intensified. Trump has threatened to cut off funding from all universities that allow “illegal protests”, and arrest and deport students who partake in such protests. 

The formula is quite simple. The executive government, which many universities rely upon for funding, have threatened to withhold this funding in exchange for favorable political concessions. Across the country, this is manifesting in an attack on working class, nationally oppressed, and progressive students and youth at these Universities and in the surrounding areas.

What we are witnessing is an increased reactionization of the university system. To keep funding, universities are scrambling to engage in mass layoffs, increase repression, and implement policies that secure their funding, choosing profits over the people they serve. 

We already see the executive branch acting, with Columbia University already being threatened by a joint action from three executive agencies unless they “address antisemitism” i.e clamp down more firmly on student protest. At OSU, admins are invoking DEI policy which will limit funding and support to future LGBTQ+ and Black students.

This increased reactionization seeks to make more overt the process initiated by the democratic party. The offensive against progressive students movement is nothing new, and was brought to intense levels by the democratic party itself, laying the groundwork for the new administration to carry through what they hope to be the final blow of any sort of revolutionary student movement. 

The future is unwritten. As we face many difficulties, it is more important than ever to support and partake in organized collective action against the new administration, and administration to come. We must organize the student movement firmly around the working class movement and mobilize, organize, and politicize students from the working class and other oppressed sectors in the struggle to defend our rights and fight for power and socialism.

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