Constructive Commentaries: Authoritarian Attacks on Universities

Periodic recommendations for reading, listening, or viewing in matters of higher education and its importance to democratic society.

Cynicism and sensationalism shape a lot of public debates about higher education today. Exaggerations, distortions, and falsehoods are common in punditry about the alleged state of college campuses.

Here are some constructive, fact-based, and illuminating antidotes to such “campus misinformation”—specifically on the topic of why authoritarian campaigns against higher learning are on the rise both abroad and in the U.S.

Ronald J. Daniels, “Why Authoritarian Regimes Attack Independent Universities,” Washington Post (September 28, 2021)

Details why authoritarian regimes, from the Taliban and Mussolini to Eastern European leaders today, consistently attack independent universities as part of broader efforts to prevent or undermine democracy.

Masha Gessen, The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia (Penguin Random House, 2018)

The award-winning journalist and essayist’s account of how Russia has reverted to totalitarianism under the regime of Vladimir Putin features many discussions about how Putin’s attacks on universities—especially the human sciences—were integral to his normalization of anti-Western and anti-LGBTQ fear-mongering on the way to consolidating greater power.

Michael Ignatieff, “Why the Populist Right Hates Universities,” The Atlantic (August 6, 2023)

Explains how Hungarian President Viktor Orbán’s attacks on universities have become a model for self-described conservative politicians in the U.S., from a former president and rector of Central European University who served at a time when the Orbán regime challenged CEU’s legal right to operate in Hungary.

Jennifer Ruth, “Subnational Authoritarianism and the Campaign to Control Higher Education,” American Association of University Professors (Fall 2023)

A detailed summary of the many explicit parallels between previous eras of pro-segregationist and other reactionary campaigns against higher education in the U.S. and today’s coordinated legislative assaults on academic freedom in the form of anti-DEI and anti-LGBTQ measures in particular.

Timothy Snyder, The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America (Penguin Random House, 2019)

The widely admired historian’s analysis of how Russian anti-democratic propaganda has influenced European and U.S. political affairs of late includes many revelations about how the Putin regime promoted aggressive anti-intellectualism as an important tool for fomenting pro-authoritarian sentiment and maintaining perpetual climates of social fear.