Jan. 27, 2026
Authoritarians in the Academy. Talking with author Sarah McLaughlin
As American universities opened satellite campuses in China and the Middle East and more foreign students came here to study, it seems that instead of our free speech values influencing them, often the reverse has happened. And too often university administrators acquiesce to such pressure because of lucrative donations and full tuitions.
As American Universities opened campuses in China and the Middle East in the early 2000s the wish was that our values of free speech and freedom would take root there. But increasingly their standards of censorship and authoritarianism seem to be pressuring our universities. How did this expansion go wrong ?
