Academe

Leading Palestinian and anti-Zionist Israeli scholars in Israeli academic institutions have been silenced and harassed.

Academics in Israel tend toward the camp that is opposed—at times profoundly and vehemently—to the current government and its antihumanistic and antidemocratic worldview.

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine raised issues of collective memory that had previously been confined to specialized academic fields.

Last spring’s crackdowns are a legacy of the buildup of police forces and criminalization of student activism dating back to Vietnam-era antiracist and anticolonial liberation movements.

The invasion of Ukraine was accompanied by a harsh crackdown on opposition to the war within Russia that included constraints on teaching and repressive measures targeting individual scholars.

Western universities must support scholars from Ukraine fleeing war and those from Russia and Belarus who have faced, or may soon face, exile because of the political climate.

Ukrainian scholars are fighting for survival and striving to preserve their country’s intellectual capital.

There’s nothing outdated about Mario Savio’s critique of the undemocratic nature of university governance and the overweening influence of a rich and powerful elite in that governing structure.

In Putin’s Russia, exile has become the price for preserving the possibility of speaking openly about public affairs.

The very student protesters who have been targeted in crackdowns on encampments may be showing us the path to peace.

A specialized institution has evolved to meet the pressing needs of a nation under siege.