Attorneys General of Control - How Russia and Texas Turn the Classroom Into a Stage of Power

Sometimes the transformation of a society first becomes visible in its schools - that was one of the central findings of our investigation. It is a moment that lingers: In Russia, the Prosecutor General declares an international education program a threat, in Texas the Attorney General demands that religious commandments hang on classroom walls. Two places, thousands of kilometers apart - and yet both follow the same logic. The state no longer acts only as an organizer of education but as a censor and enforcer of a worldview. In Russia it hit the International Baccalaureate at the end of August, that program that for an entire generation was the key to Western universities. With the decision of the Prosecutor General to declare the Swiss foundation an "undesirable organization," an entire educational world was dismantled within hours. The official reasoning is loaded: IB is said to "format Russian youth according to Western templates," to falsify "commonly known facts," to engage in "anti-Russian propaganda," and to incite "ethnic hatred." That does not sound like a pedagogical debate but like a verdict.

The consequences are immediately tangible - and they stretch across the entire country. Our research shows that 29 schools in Russia most recently operated under IB standards, most of them in Moscow, others in St. Petersburg, Kaluga, Kazan and Vladivostok. These schools ran programs that opened direct access for students to over 4,500 universities worldwide. In May, 286 Russian students took their IB final exams - a generation whose educational path is now called into question from one day to the next. This decision does not stand alone: Already in July, the Prosecutor General had declared Yale University an "undesirable organization" and claimed that its activities were directed against the "territorial integrity of Russia." Our research shows that this is not just a symbolic demarcation but carries concrete legal consequences. Since the decision, any participation in projects of Yale University in Russia has been prohibited, as well as the unannotated dissemination of information about its work. Cooperation, scholarships or research contracts can be classified as participation in the activity of an "undesirable organization" - with penalties ranging from heavy fines to criminal prosecution under Article 284.1 of the Russian Criminal Code. Even those who graduated from Yale long ago must now indicate in public appearances or resumes that the university is considered "undesirable" in Russia. For students who participate in seminars online from Russia or plan to return, the situation is particularly risky: their education could be classified as illegal activity. Putin's love for Trump apparently has its limits.

The hardest hit are the most expensive and prestigious schools in the country. In institutions such as the Letovo School, which ranks 30th in the RAEX ranking of the 100 most competitive schools in Russia, curricula had to be changed overnight. There, a school year including boarding costs up to 3.7 million rubles - more than ten times the average income of a Russian family. This is precisely where the children of the political and economic elite were taught until now. The fact that even these bastions are now forced to purge their curricula shows that the Prosecutor General's move is not a marginal measure but a blow against the educational paths of those who have the most to lose. Teachers end courses in the middle of the school year, logos disappear from websites, parents receive urgent messages.

Schools such as the Kaluga International School are trying to cushion the transition to state curricula, but the principals know: They must act, immediately. Lawyers advise removing every trace of IB from official documents, canceling contracts, formally documenting the break. The law does not provide for a transition period - anyone still cooperating with IB after August 25 risks penalties up to and including criminal prosecution.

And in Texas it is not school boards that decide on curricula but lawyers who, with the authority of the state, determine what has to hang on the wall. Dictionaries are removed from shelves because they supposedly contain "inappropriate content," and next the Ten Commandments are to become part of the classroom. This is not an expression of religious diversity but the elevation of a particular morality to mandatory reading. The state turns schools into symbols and uses the power of law to stigmatize deviation. For a long time, one was tempted to dismiss such processes as symptoms of authoritarian systems, as distant problems "of the others." Russia was seen as the place where one expects something like this, the USA as the country where open debate is the last protective wall. But in 2025 even that self-assurance is crumbling. In a country that has enshrined the separation of church and state in its constitution, an alliance of religious zeal, political opportunism and technological power ambitions is rewriting the public space. Link to the article: https://kaizen-blog.org/en/die-rueckkehr-der-steinplatten-amerikas-gotteswahn-im-21-jahrhundert/

Peter Thiel is something like the architect of a new order. Our research has shown how he has created a system that links data power, political strategy and billions in capital into a closed loop. While his software Palantir provides the technical infrastructure for a surveillance state, the Rockbridge Network he finances builds the political machinery to implement this vision. What is emerging here is not an ordinary concentration of power but a new model of authoritarian control in the digital age. The danger does not lie in spectacular coup attempts or open violence. It lies in the creeping transformation of democratic institutions by an alliance of data analysis, venture capital and political mobilization. Thiel, who once said that freedom and democracy are no longer compatible, has with surgical precision created an ecosystem in which his dystopian vision can become reality. When you place these developments side by side, a disturbing picture emerges: a Russian state that criminalizes education and an America that, in the name of morality and order, politically recodes its schools. Two worlds that are becoming more and more alike because they speak the same language of control. Not with a blow, not with a military coup, but with a legal stroke of the pen here, a commandment plaque there, a piece of software that scans data streams. Link to the article: https://kaizen-blog.org/en/die-architektur-der-kontrolle-wie-peter-thiels-datenmacht-und-das-politische-netzwerk-rockbridge-die-demokratie-untergraben/

Especially in such times, investigative journalism is not a luxury but a protective mechanism. When public spaces become narrower, when even books and curricula become a battlefield, it is these people who keep the overview, expose the logic, make the connections visible. In the darkest moments of modern societies, enlightenment is the strongest antidote to the silent erosion of freedom. And it is the reminder that democracy does not survive by elections alone but by the constant willingness to question power, to find the courage to stand against it - in Moscow as well as in Texas, but also in Germany.