The City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center is offering an English course titled “Global Antifa,” openly promoting far-left ideology under the guise of academic study. The course syllabus frames militant activism as scholarly research, encouraging students to join global movements against capitalism, traditional gender roles, and national borders.
The course, set for Spring 2026, claims to examine antifascist literature from around the world. However, it quickly veers into activist territory, encouraging students to conduct “militant co-research” and “produce knowledge that contributes to the work of global movements fighting fascism.” The syllabus lists goals such as “rethinking empire,” “challenging capitalism,” and “abolishing borders”—language consistent with radical leftist activism.
Required readings include chapters on “Black Marxist Antifascism,” “Queer Antifa,” “Colonial Fascisms,” and “Eco-Fascism and Border Abolition.” The course includes materials from figures such as Angela Davis, a known communist and former Black Panther, and radical groups like the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries. Students are instructed to adopt “activist research methods” and to blend scholarly work with participation in real-world political movements.
According to course materials reviewed by watchdog group Parents Defending Education, students are urged to blur the lines between academic analysis and street-level activism. Assignments are designed to help students “strategize about how we might mobilize and disseminate knowledge in the service of antifascist struggle.” The course promotes “insurgent learning,” a model that elevates activism over objective scholarship.
CUNY has faced criticism in the past for leftist bias, but this course signals a deeper shift—using public education to advance an ideological mission. Rather than fostering academic inquiry, the class promotes the dismantling of long-standing Western institutions, including capitalism, family, and national sovereignty.
