America’s higher education institutions are increasingly treated like partisan punching bags. Right-wing legislators, advocacy groups, and dark-money donors are trying to dictate what can be taught, which books can be read, and which speakers are welcome on our campuses.

While some lawmakers at the state and national levels have moved to restrict the instruction of topics like race, gender, and history, the Pam Bondi-led Department of Justice-issued guidance on July 29 is designed to handcuff universities and K-12 schools, threatening “significant legal risks” should universities and school districts continue with time-tested, data-proven initiatives to support students.

Is every right-of-center legislator, especially those in locally elected positions, part of the systematic coup against education and our democratic experiment? Of course not, but private dissent is a fool’s errand. Where are their voices? The outspoken redirect to local issues but unlike any other time, national is local.

The attack on DEI programs, targeting of our LGBTQ+ students, the attempt to push a false version of history into our classrooms is part of a larger platform to reimagine America as a right-wing wet dream. They’re weaponizing fear and exploiting apathy with a goal of tearing down our hallmark institutions by turning them into ideological battlegrounds.

Our greatest fictitious president, Andrew Shepherd, [from the 1995 film, The American President] said it best: “[they] are only interested two things, making you afraid of it and telling you who’s to blame for it.”

Democracy is being tested, not in our history books, but right now. It is not whether we say the right things, but whether we do the right things. In his 1961 Inaugural Address, John F. Kennedy said, “every one of us is in a position of responsibility; and, in the final analysis, the kind of government we get depends upon how we fulfill those responsibilities. We, the people, are the boss, and we will get the kind of political leadership, be it good or bad, that we demand and deserve.”

Before the public trust in universities erodes, we must recommit to free inquiry and resist censorship pressures. Our democratic experiment cannot function without a citizenry trained to think critically and engage in healthy debate and dialogue. We must not allow our classrooms to be turned into civic battlegrounds of censorship and fear.

Today, we must resoundingly say, no more. Voting is the bare minimum. Organizing, volunteering, donating, speaking up — that’s how we make real change.

Christopher M. Piscitelli is the Associate Dean of Students at Southern Connecticut State University and Policy Chair of the Hamden Board of Education