Paralysis in the neoliberal university
Editor’s Note: This is a guest opinion that has been submitted by a member of the Rice community. The views expressed in this opinion are those of the author and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of the Thresher or its editorial board. All guest opinions are fact-checked to the best of our ability and edited for clarity and conciseness by Thresher editors.
Trump’s attacks on university admissions and scholarship have laid bare the structural contradictions at the heart of the neoliberal university, viscerally embodied in the recent abduction of Columbia University student activist Mahmoud Khalil by ICE agents.
Many university administrations in the U.S. have maintained their complicity in the ongoing genocide in Gaza, while ramping up repression against the student movement in solidarity with Palestine by suspending or expelling the students involved.
Khalil’s arrest marks the unmasking of university administrators who have now dropped any semblance of commitment to their students and faculty and to anti-colonial and anti-racist education. Instead, administrators are doubling down as police force for U.S. colonial power as they continue to prioritize acting as hedge fund managers, willing to sacrifice the soul of higher education to bolster the university’s portfolio.
Rice is no exception to this national story. To preserve the integrity of education, we must realize that Rice’s racist foundations, its exploitation of the Houston community and its commitment to U.S. colonial projects are interrelated.
Here, administrators fell in line with Gov. Greg Abbott’s threats against student protestors as they sought to repress Rice SJP’s liberated zone during the nationwide mobilization of student encampments. They have also cynically deployed the fight against antisemitism as a tool to suppress activism and have enacted increasingly repressive policies surrounding speech and protest. As at Columbia, willing participation in repressing solidarity only deepens the grip of fascist power over the university.
As it polices student protest, Rice simultaneously transforms itself into a hub of U.S. colonial propaganda. The Rice administration refuses to act on the popularly supported referenda for disclosure and has now brought Israeli colonial violence to its campus through the recently established “Gibborim” scholarship, which provides full tuition for one Israeli veteran every year to attend the Jones Graduate School of Business.
The role of the university in disciplining solidarity movements has roots much closer to home. For years, universities have occupied our communities through ever-expanding real estate footprints. On Feb. 24, Rice’s Office of Innovation and the Baker Institute for Public Policy co-sponsored a discussion to “explore how U.S. research institutions advance democracy, equity and innovation in fields of national interest.”
The event took place in the Ion, “Houston’s HQ for Innovation” stuffed with tech-oriented venture startups, and felt outright celebratory amid the Trump administration’s targeting of university research and rolling back civil rights on campuses through attacks on DEI programs.
The Ion District represents the Rice Management Company’s encroachment into Third Ward, one of Houston’s historically Black neighborhoods and a “cradle of the city’s civil rights movement.” This activity has rightfully been flagged as gentrification by many, including Rice’s own student body.
Rice’s lack of concern for the residents of this neighborhood has been marked notably by the University’s exclusion of Third Ward activists and residents from their own Community Benefits Agreement. Its physical occupation of Houston’s Black community is a painful continuation of its long history of racist land acquisition documented by its own Task Force on Slavery, Segregation and Racial Injustice.
Rice has revealed itself as an exploitative hedge fund manager willing to sacrifice its own students at a moment’s notice. As students, faculty and staff who wish to cultivate anti-racist and anti-colonial educational spaces, we must mobilize and recognize our collective power and protect ourselves — we can no longer rely on the myth that our administrators will meet the historical moment.
We must build coalition spaces that recognize the interrelated nature of our struggles against colonialism, racism and systemic defunding. Building real institutions for our collective voice is the only way to protect our values.
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