Episode Details

This article is read by Eunice Wong, a Juilliard-trained actor, featured on Audible's list of Best Women Narrators. Her work is on the annual Best Audiobooks lists of the New York Times, Audible, AudioFile, & Library Journal. www.eunicewong.actor

Text originally published March 11, 2025

I Stink Therefore I Am - by Mr. Fish

The attacks on colleges and universities — Donald Trump’s administration has warned some 60 colleges that they could lose federal money if they fail to make campuses safe for Jewish students and is already pulling $400 million from Columbia University — has nothing to do with fighting antisemitism. Antisemitism is a smoke screen, a cover for a much broader and more insidious agenda. The goal, which includes plans to abolish the Department of Education and terminate all programs of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), is to turn the educational system, from kindergarten to graduate school, into an indoctrination machine.

Totalitarian regimes seek absolute control over the institutions that reproduce ideas, especially the media and education. Narratives that challenge the myths used to legitimize absolute power — in our case historical facts that blemish the sanctity of white male supremacy, capitalism and Christian fundamentalism — are erased. There is to be no shared reality. There are to be no other legitimate perspectives. History is to be static. It is not to be open to reinterpretation or investigation. It is to be calcified into myth to buttress a ruling ideology and the reigning political and social hierarchy. Any other paradigm of power and social interaction is tantamount to treason.

“One of the most significant threats that a class hierarchy can face is a universally accessible and excellent public school system,” writes Jason Stanley in “Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future:”

The political philosophy that feels this threat most acutely — and that unites hostility toward public education with support for class hierarchy — is a certain form of rightwing libertarianism, an ideology that sees free markets as the wellspring of human freedom. These kinds of libertarians oppose government regulation and virtually all forms of public goods, including public education. The political goal of this version of libertarian ideology is to dismantle public goods. The dismantling of public education is backed by oligarchs and business elites alike, who see in democracy a threat to their power, and in the taxes required for public goods a threat to their wealth. Public schools are the foundational democratic public good. It is therefore perfectly logical that those who are opposed to democracy, including fascist and fascist-leaning movements, would join forces with right-wing libertarians in undermining the institution of public education.

I taught Howard Z