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    Commentary: It Can Happen Here?

    October 20, 2023 1 min read

    John Aubrey Douglass
    Academe Blog

    Excerpt: There is much to worry about as we approach 2024: attacks on academic freedom, on free speech, on open societies, and attempts to degrade democracy, and not just here in the United States. As I discuss in my article “Here and Abroad, Universities Face an Autocratic Playbook” in the recent issue of Academe, there are stories in almost all the corners of the world concerning the importance of academic freedom and the general concept of universities as unique and valuable autonomous or semi-autonomous institutions under attack.

    The war in Ukraine, systematic suppression of faculty and student voices in Russia, jailing of the same in China and Turkey, restraints on academic freedom in Hungary and elsewhere, and now the horrific events in Israel and Gaza—all bring home the reality that academics must navigate through the political and harsh realities of the world.

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    December 20, 2024 1 min read

    Jonathan Chait
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    Excerpt: A decade ago, cultural norms in elite American institutions took a sharply illiberal turn. Professors would get disciplined, journalists fired, ordinary people harassed by social-media mobs, over some decontextualized phrase or weaponized misunderstanding. Every so often, I would write about these events or the debates that they set off.

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