By Jan-Werner Mueller
We have become so accustomed to aspiring auto crats attacking universities that we hardly ever stop to ask why. But pushing back against authoritarians requires understanding their motivations and strategies. University leaders, in particular, ought to be better prepared to coordinate resistance across institutions of higher education and to ensure internal cohesion among faculty.
Otherwise, autocrats may succeed in playing different parts of academia off against one another. One type of attack on universities has become depressingly familiar partly because it is so easy for far-right populists to copy: a culture war targeting specific academic subjects and programs like “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” One can criticise DEI’s implementation without endorsing the far right’s claim that it amounts to discrimination against white men, and without accepting the demonstrably false notion that left-wing professors comprehensively indoctrinate their innocent charges. Such claims are the building blocks for a bridge that the far right hopes to extend to citizens who see themselves as centrist. When in power, the far right has appropriated the language of “freedom” but actually makes academic life unfree.
In the United States, for example, laws devised by Republicans restrict which subjects can be taught and how; similarly, the Hungarian government has prohibited gender studies altogether. But it is a mistake to think other parts of the university are safe if concessions are made to the culture-war agenda, because aspiring autocrats – which is what far-right politicians will always become if they have enough power, time, and resources – cannot tolerate independent institutions.
Universities potentially provide safe spaces for open political discussion and coordination of the opposition. They serve as what Harvard Law School’s Vicki C. Jack son calls “knowledge institutions,” producing expertise that could serve as a basis for criticising governments. And they generally advance what Robert C. Post of Yale Law School calls “democratic competence” among citizens. Thus, it is no accident that aspiring autocrats target higher education, both to prevent such institutions from becoming sites of resistance and to ensure their own long-term influence over educational content and public culture. Their preferred strategy nowadays is “autocratic legalism”: substituting laws that are passed in formally correct ways for violent assaults likely to generate pushback and loss of reputation among domestic and international observers. Hungary is once again a prime example.
By turning many universities into foundations, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán supposedly rendered them less dependent on the state. In reality, they have all ended up being controlled by his cronies. The same is true for lavishly funded new institutions created in parallel to the existing higher education system. These “castles of illiberal thought” are ultimately in the service of the regime. Autocrats can also gain an advantage by sowing uncertainty within institutions, so that professors are never quite sure where normal teaching and research end and where areas the state might suddenly target begin. This notion of a “dual state” – initially suggested by the legal theorist Ernst Fraenkel to make sense of 1930s Nazi Germany – describes the Chinese government’s strategy via-à-vis Hong Kong through its “National Security Law.” When people can never be sure about what is permissible, self-censorship often becomes the default. But repression need not be confi ned to one territory. Critics abroad can also be targeted with online and physical harassment by fellow students when they cross the line. Autocracies not only copy each other but also reach across borders with increasing acts of transnational repression.
So, what is the best way to fight back? For starters, universities should be more proactive. Even in countries that remain stable democracies, such as Germany, the far right is already targeting higher education with official requests for information about gender and postcolonial studies. Academia should not always allow itself to be on the defensive. Instead, academic leaders should anticipate different scenarios in advance of attacks.
University presidents must also have a plan ready to coordinate with peers. One of the most disheartening lessons of the MAGA assault on higher education has been universities’ inability to form a united front in defence of academic freedom. Resistance is a coordination game, and many have failed to play it well. As a result, Trumpists can divide and rule through individual “deals” that leave those who accept them at the mercy of the federal government. Internal cohesion is also crucial. This does not mean that faculty must agree on everything, but it does mean that universities should figure out how to prevent fatal fractures. The Trump administration has clearly sought to set natural scientists against the humanities and some social sciences, incentivising the former to put pressure on the latter to make concessions so that funding for critical lab work can be restored.
Fortunately, internal solidarity has largely prevailed in these cases – so far. University presidents also must speak to the public and make the case for what their institutions contribute to society. True, this is more difficult in countries where aspiring autocrats have already captured independent media, and it does run the risk of turning important but esoteric academic subjects into the playthings of public opinion. But the university is not only in the useful business of producing and disseminating knowledge. It is also in the seemingly useless business of preserving knowledge that otherwise might be lost forever. In doing so, it is providing a public good. Finally, the law itself can offer a defence, rather than becoming a weapon of autocratic legalism. Where academic freedom is not constitutionalised explicitly – such as in France – protections should be codified and solidified. And where supranational institutions might gain leverage – think of the European Research Area Act currently being debated in the European Union – the law should not only aim at increasing investment and researcher mobility, but include robust safeguards for academic freedom.
The writer is Professor of Politics at Princeton University.
