Policing Higher Education: The Antidemocratic Attack on Scholars and Why It Matters

On the essential role of higher education and academic freedom in thriving democracies.

Higher education is facing an existential crisis. Students and staff are surveilled with cameras and facial recognition software. Police zip-tie and arrest students during protests. As universities across the United States become epicenters of ideological warfare, Policing Higher Education contextualizes these skirmishes within a broader global framework. From the contentious debates surrounding free speech and curriculum control to the denial of tenure for outspoken faculty, Eve Darian-Smith examines the myriad ways higher education has become a battleground.

Darian-Smith highlights the intersecting global trends of rising authoritarianism and declining academic freedom, revealing how the United States is part of a larger pattern seen in democracies worldwide, including in Brazil, Hungary, Germany, India, and the Philippines. This book challenges readers to view educational conflicts not merely as culture wars but as intense and connected struggles over economic, political, and social power. Drawing from extensive scholarship, Darian-Smith humanizes the impacts of these attacks on scholars and students, offering poignant stories of persecution and resilience.

With a critical eye on the historical and structural drivers of antidemocracy, this book pushes for new, meaningful conversations about academic freedom that transcend national borders. It emphasizes the vital role of universities in fostering social responsibility and combating the global drift toward authoritarianism.

Eve Darian-Smith (LAGUNA BEACH, CA) is a professor and chair of global studies & international studies at the University of California Irvine.