A Socialist Is About to Run America’s Largest City, Higher Education is to Blame

A political earthquake is about to hit New York City.

Zohran Mamdani, a self-proclaimed socialist and rising star of the far left, is now leading the race to become mayor of America's largest city. According to recent polling, he is ahead of his nearest competitor by double digits. If you want to see what decades of unchecked radicalism in higher education leads to, look no further than this campaign.

Zohran is not a political fluke. He is the product of a system. His father, Mahmood Mamdani, has spent decades at Columbia University championing Marxist theory and anti-Western ideology from one of the most influential academic platforms in the country.

These ideas were once fringe. Now they are fueling political campaigns, writing policy platforms, and shaping the future of our cities.

Mahmood Mamdani represents a generation of professors who turned the classroom into a launching pad for activism.

Through books, lectures, and curriculum, they have normalized the view that the United States is irredeemably oppressive, capitalism is theft, and the Western tradition should be dismantled. Their students listened. And some, like Zohran, are now taking those beliefs directly to the ballot box.

As a Christian university president, I have spent years watching this trend take shape.

While many colleges have become breeding grounds for grievance politics and anti-American ideology, a growing number of faith-based institutions are holding the line.

They are committed to forming students in wisdom, truth, and service, not ideological conformity. The answer to extremism in higher education is not less education, but education rooted in moral clarity, ordered liberty, and enduring values.

Sadly, that is not the kind of formation most students receive today.

Backed by the Democratic Socialists of America, Mamdani's platform reads like a manifesto, not a municipal plan: abolish the police, cancel rent, redistribute wealth, and fundamentally remake New York’s economy and institutions.

This is not a case of progressive reform.

It's a blueprint for ideological revolution, being sold as compassion and justice.

This is exactly what I confront in "College Without Communism," a book I coauthored with Joshua Lisec. Together, we lay out the ideological capture of American higher education and the path to restoring it.

American higher education, particularly at elite institutions, has drifted from truth and character to grievance and ideology.

Instead of forming wise and virtuous leaders, our colleges are producing political radicals, now poised to take power in the most influential city in the world.

This is no longer a theoretical threat.

It's happening. Today, more than 35% of Gen Z view socialism more favorably than capitalism. In the social sciences, more than 60% of college faculty identify as far-left or liberal, while fewer than five percent identify as conservative.

That imbalance does not just shape campus culture.

It shapes the minds of future voters, policymakers, and civic leaders.

If Zohran Mamdani wins, he will not just govern New York. He will set a precedent for other major cities, from Los Angeles to Chicago to Atlanta.

His success would embolden a new generation of activist-politicians shaped not by real-world experience or constitutional wisdom, but by critical theory and revolutionary rhetoric.

What begins in the university no longer stays there. It governs.

We must respond.

We need to rebuild American higher education from the ground up.

We need colleges that form students into citizens, not revolutionaries.

We need faculty who challenge students to seek truth, not conform to an ideological script. We need institutions that teach history as it happened, not as a weapon of political convenience.

In short, we need colleges without communism.

As Scripture warns, we must not be taken captive by hollow and deceptive philosophies.

That warning was for the church, but it applies just as urgently to our classrooms and our culture. The time to speak up is now.

The ideology that captured our universities is no longer content to stay on campus.

It wants to write the rules for cities, school boards, and entire generations.

And unless we confront it, it will.

Dr. Kent Ingle serves as the president of Southeastern University in Lakeland, Florida, one of the fastest growing private universities in America. A champion of innovative educational design, Ingle is the author of "Framework Leadership.'' Read Dr. Kent Ingle's Reports — More Here.