America’s heartland was supposed to be a firewall. Instead, campuses in red states like Ohio have become soft targets for organizations actively working to dismantle the United States from within. The University of Cincinnati is no longer merely an institution of higher learning; it is a test case for how easily radical elements can capture taxpayer-funded infrastructure.
At the center of this storm sits President Neville Pinto, a native of India whose total compensation—including bonuses and perks—exceeds $1 million annually. While ordinary Ohioans struggle with inflation, Pinto presides over a campus that soaked American taxpayers for $200 million in federal funding last year alone. That is not investment; it is extraction.
Worse still, that money is not buying education. It is buying mobilization. The Young Democratic Socialists of America, the militant youth arm of the DSA, has established a beachhead on Pinto’s campus. In January, the chapter built a home base and rapid-response network specifically to organize opposition against ICE operations. They have turned federally subsidized classrooms into strategy centers for a Communist-aligned organization determined to nullify federal immigration law.
Let that sink in. Classrooms built and maintained by American tax dollars are being used to coordinate resistance against federal agents enforcing the law. The YDSA is not hosting debates; it is organizing logistical support and distributing propaganda to obstruct operations. On a campus in red-state Ohio, this should set off alarm bells. Instead, it is met with administrative silence.
The trend is not isolated. DSA and YDSA chapters are expanding across Ohio at a disturbing pace, using the credibility and cover of university letterheads to radicalize students and normalize open-border activism. They benefit from the prestige of institutions they fundamentally oppose, while administrators treat their presence as mere campus diversity.
And the tap stays open. The University of Cincinnati is scheduled to receive another $200 million in federal funds in the coming weeks. Not a dime of it appears contingent on rooting out organizations that use university space to wage political warfare against the government that funds them. The Department of Education, meanwhile, has offered no comment—not a warning, not an audit, not a pause.
This is not academic freedom. This is institutional capture. When Communist-affiliated groups use federally funded facilities to undermine federal law enforcement, and when a public university bankrolls the effort while its president collects seven figures, the situation ceases to be political intrigue and becomes national security negligence.
Ohioans, and all Americans, deserve to know why their money is fueling organizations that seek the country’s destruction. If the Department of Education will not ask, Congress must. Defunding is not retaliation; it is self-defense. Campuses are either partners in preserving the republic, or they are soft targets subsidizing their own dismantling. The University of Cincinnati has made its choice painfully clear.
Editorial comments expressed in this column are the sole opinion of the writer
