As Eve Darian-Smith, a professor of global [& international] studies at the University of California, Irvine, explained at the conference, we shouldn’t be surprised to see so many overlaps between the United States and other countries. What’s happening in Florida and other red states, she argued, must be understood in the context of rising authoritarianism and right-wing populism worldwide. Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida is cut from a similar cloth as politicians in places like Hungary, Poland, Venezuela, and Brazil, striving, as Darian-Smith put it, to “control what is taught in universities, push repressive ideological perspectives, and curb student and faculty protest against those in power.”

For the full story, please visit https://www.chronicle.com/article/is-academic-freedom-a-human-right.