ROME—Students in Italy have been urged to expose their “left-wing teachers” for the first time since Mussolini’s fascist dictatorship collapsed in 1943.
Last month, Student Action (Azione Studentesca), an Italian youth association linked to Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party, encouraged high school students aged between 14 and 19 to profile and denounce their teachers who supposedly espoused left-leaning ideas.
Questions like, “Do you have at least one left-wing teacher who is making political propaganda during their lessons?” and “Describe one of the most emblematic cases [of left-wing propaganda],” were part of a six-question survey that Student Action administered to teenagers in schools.
While the government and the Ministry of Education defined the right-wing students’ group as a harmless initiative, hundreds have spoken out against it. A total of 305 teenagers, teachers, and school staff signed a public statement in opposition.
It comes amid a series of “self-denouncing videos” published online by hundreds of “left-wing schoolteachers,” after a 35-year-old Venetian instructor, Giorgio Peloso Zantaforni, started the trend.
“I’m surprised that saying you’re left-wing in 2026 gets such a strong media echo. It is clearly a sign of the times we are living in,” Zantaforni said. “It is a sign that the parties, which are crucial mediators in democracies, should look more broadly and transparently at society.
“The success that my video had across Italy is a symptom of a society that has recognized itself and must regain its space and right of expression,” he added.
As Zantaforni declared in his video, first published on his Instagram page: “This is not an impartial inquiry into teachers’ politicization. Perhaps, anti-fascist thought scares more than a really never unlearned fascism.”
The questionnaire was accessible via a QR code on some flyers affixed on walls outside high schools, as well as on Student Action’s social media channels.
“The school is ours!” read the leaflet, and: “We are ready to make a national report on the Italian schools’ situation! Follow the link, fill in the form, and send us your answers. For a new school, it’s time for action!”
About 7.1 million pupils attended high schools in Italy in 2025, according to the Italian Ministry of Education and Merit. However, it is unclear how many students actually filled out the survey, which is not available anymore and disappeared from the internet.
The form was supposed to gather information about what high school students think about their schools and how school standards might be improved.
Other queries were: “What’s the physical state of your school building?”; “What are the main problems in your school?”; “Is your school going on a school trip this year?”; “If not, what is the reason?”
The initiative has sparked concerns over freedom of thought and expression being at risk in Italy, with hundreds of teachers being essentially profiled.
Historians, intellectuals, Italian anti-fascist World War II veterans, as well as high school personnel, condemned the episode as a discriminatory action, a threat to freedom of thought, and to basic freedoms in general.
The president of the Italian veterans’ association, National Association of Italian Partisans (Associazione Nazionale Partigiani d’Italia, or ANPI), Gianfranco Pagliaruolo, said, “This is a frontal attack on freedom of teaching, didactic autonomy, and pluralism of ideas.
“Furthermore, this is a manifest attempt to build a climate of ratting amongst pupils,” Pagliaruolo added.
Indeed, before completing the form, students were asked for their name, surname, postcode, school, and classroom—making it very easy to identify each teacher who has been reported.
Minister for Education and Merit Paola Frassinetti said she is looking into what happened. However, “so far it looks like an independent initiative promoted by some students, with an anonymous survey,” she said.
Because Student Action is a branch of National Youth (Gioventu Nazionale), the youth association of Brothers of Italy, opposition MPs in parliament have pushed Meloni’s government and the Education Secretary Giuseppe Valditara to distance themselves from Student Action.
“The problem is not about anonymity [of the teachers], but about the method used: to profile, label, and expose teachers based on their ideas,” 5 Star Movement (Movimento a 5 Stelle), an opposition party, reported to the Italian parliament last week.
“It is a method that never led to anything good in history,” and they added: “Should we think that the party [Brothers of Italy] agrees with this?”
While many centrist as well as left-wing Italian MPs compared the students’ association survey to fascist proscription lists, a Brothers of Italy MP, Giovanni Donzelli, defined the general outcry as an attempt to censor students.
“I am particularly impressed by the aggressive censorship that the left would like to impose on schoolchildren,” Donzelli said.
“I wish that, in all their freedom, students will not let PD [Democratic Party] and the left force them to shut their mouths, and that they will always have the freedom of protesting whenever they like,” Donzelli added.
The Observatory Against the Militarization of Schools and Universities, an association that monitors and exposes war propaganda in Italian state schools, said that “these are heavy attacks on freedom of teaching and pluralism that the Italian constitution itself conferred to state-funded education.”
As the Observatory reported, schools are still the main outposts of anti-racist education and critical thinking, at least in Italy. The same institution highlighted how contemporary Italy is actually founded on anti-fascism, which might be regarded by some as inherently leftist.
Recently, there have been many concerns about freedom of thought and expression being at risk in Italy. Fascist propaganda is rising at an alarming rate, and freedom of the press has been attacked several times.
Earlier in January, Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini greeted far-right U.K. activist Tommy Robinson (Stephen Yaxley-Lennon) in his office.
Many say it is a foreboding sign when a branch of the ruling right-wing party asks pupils to report teachers thought to be leftist, but those behind the survey have come out defending their actions.
“Anyone who wants to see rottenness in a survey which asks students about the state of education they are growing up in is in complete bad faith,” wrote the president of Student Action, Riccardo Ponzio, on the association’s Facebook page.
In the same post, the 29-year-old accused the “left-wing schoolteachers’ class” of having brought political propaganda to school.
However, neither Ponzio nor Azione Studentesca specified what the group means when they speak about leftist ideas in schools.
“Political propaganda is another thing,” some teachers from Bologna, a city in the north of Italy famous for being home to one of the oldest universities in the world, commented.
As they said in a video published on social media: “To go through complex issues, expressing our views is part of our educational work. It would be very dangerous if we judged students for what they think. The other way round is equally dangerous.”
However, the prompt reaction from the Italian cultural and educational sector remains a good sign for the country.
“Now we need to stand up. There is a lack of democracy also because many people no longer vote,” said Zantaforni. “We must show that a different Italy is possible.”
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