Trump, The Rightwing & The Targeting and Assault On Academics and Education Workers

There is an organized attack on professors and education workers by Turning Point USA and other rightwing organizations funded by billionaires like the Mercer family and Tea Party politicians like Illinois governor Bruce Rauner. This forum will hear from academics who have been targeted, what this has meant to them and how they and their unions have fought back.

Turning Point USA with a budget of over $8 million dollars has organized events for racists and neo-nazis throughout the US, and set up chapters not only on college and universities but also on high school campuses. They are hiring political operatives who are coordinating a national organized witch hunt of professors and education workers who have challenged the racist and growing fascist attacks in the United States. They are also operating internationally to link up with racist and neo-nazi movements around the world.

This forum will also look at the historic connections between the Nazi movement and the growing rightwing attacks developing in the US, and how the unions and working class can organize against these new threats to democratic and worker rights. They have also been trained on how to use social media including Facebook to organize their targeting and witch hunts against those on their “Professors Watchlist”.

Professor Wendy Lynne Lee was targeted by right-wing Turning Point USA using a Facebook conflagration of verbal assault, threats in person harassment, character assassination and efforts to get her University officials to punish her.
Ph.D University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign graduate student Tariq Khan who is a unionist and anti-racist activist was also targeted by Turning Point USA and framed up by this organization to get him arrested and terminated from the University.

These organized attacks by this reactionary organization is part of their plan to “cleanse” the university and campuses of anti-racists and union activists as well as recruiting young people to a fascist movement.

Educational Forum with:

Professor Lynne Wendy Lee – Professor of Philosophy Bloomberg University of Pennsylvania, and active union member in the Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties (APSCUF)

Tariq Khan – Graduate Student at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and member of AFT GEO Local 6300 UIUC IFT/AFT AFL-CIO

Sponsored by:
Defend Public Education NOW! – https://www.facebook.com/DefendPublicEducationNOW/
KPFA WorkWeek Radio – https://soundcloud.com/workweek-radio