Every day, it seems there is yet another incursion into higher education in the United States. Whether retaliatory funding cuts, demands for sway over academic departments or immigration authorities’ attack on international students’ speech rights, the ongoing threats from the Trump administration are numerous and disturbing.
Many of these blunt attacks at home are new, but for decades the threat of authoritarianism from abroad has simmered under the surface.
Partnerships with authoritarian regimes, like China and the Gulf states, and the spread of satellite campuses in those nations, have introduced censorial incentives for universities hoping to secure new opportunities and funding sources. In the age of the corporate university, this can result in institutions making decisions that prioritise their financial interests over their values. And international students have long been a target of censors abroad before catching the eye of federal officials here.
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The disintegrating state of academic freedom in the United States requires universities to guard themselves against authoritarianism at home – but they must also address the threats from abroad that they have long overlooked or, worse, aided.
Political changes outside the academy play a significant role in what changes are wrought upon higher education, but so do the community members within it. So, what should change?
What university leadership and administrators can do
If you receive demands from the federal government that violate your institution’s First Amendment rights or those of your students and faculty: do not comply. Yes, that approach may invite financial difficulties and political retribution, but to fulfil their mission, universities must remain independent. If contacted by federal or state officials for a purpose that poses First Amendment concerns, universities must respond in a transparent manner that ensures protection of community members’ rights.
If one of your international students is targeted by immigration authorities for their protected expression, assist in any available means. That may involve, where helpful in a student’s court case, submitting a declaration that the student is in good standing with the university and complying with student visa requirements. It may involve issuing a more general public statement in support of international students’ speech rights. Universities cannot be students’ immigration lawyers, but they should be responsive and coordinate with the affected students’ legal team whenever possible and appropriate.
It’s time to, in good faith, reassess overseas partnerships. Especially in the case of satellite campuses, on-the-ground conditions may have drastically changed in the years since those agreements began. Revise the terms of agreements that fail to protect academic freedom, offer whistleblower protections for academics who report rights violations and conduct investigations to discover if any such violations have occurred. Publicly commit to end partnerships if they violate academic freedom, or at least be fully transparent about the true extent of censorship under local laws.
Long before they feared visa revocation for their words, student dissidents from abroad faced surveillance, threats and sometimes direct censorship following them even into the United States. At minimum, universities should be providing orientation programming that ensures international students understand the basics of their right to speak under campus policies and in the United States more broadly. They should also consider providing programmes that teach students methods to protect themselves – and perhaps their anonymity – while speaking on the internet.
Similarly, universities should inform students about what to do should they face transnational repression on or off campus. Should students contact the police or the international students office? Perhaps the FBI? Ensure that these resources exist, and that students feel safe alerting administrators when in need of them.
What academics can do
Act with care when travelling abroad – whether entering China, India, or elsewhere – or returning across the US border. Take what precautions you can to protect your and your students’ data, and beware of carrying devices with sensitive material.
Understand that your students may be concerned about their ability to speak and study freely, whether because of foreign governments, local authorities, or both. Consider what precautions may be offered to protect student privacy in class, especially in courses taught online.
Know your rights, whether at a public or private university, and be willing to advocate for them and for those of your peers. If you believe your university is violating those rights in service of political or financial goals, know what legal recourse is available to you.
Advocate for speech protective policies at your institution and its global programmes. Faculty bodies should press for administrators to centre their involvement in future and existing partnerships so their terms are more protective of their rights.
The coming months and years will be trying ones for academic freedom, and authoritarian efforts to quash it will continue to evolve. In order to oppose that, our tactics must evolve too.
University leaders must combat, rather than abet, the decay of rights protection in the United States. But they also must take this as an opportunity to reflect on the ways they have already undermined these values in past pursuits of other aims.
Sarah McLaughlin is senior scholar of global expression at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression and author of Authoritarians in the Academy: How the Internationalization of Higher Education and Borderless Censorship Threaten Free Speech.
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