"The agenda is to wipe out critical thought"—Struggles for academic freedom (part 2)

In the second of two interviews with leading anthropologists focused on academic freedom, the editors of American Ethnologist speak with Eve Darian-Smith (University of California, Irvine) and Virginia R. Dominguez (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign). Darian-Smith recently published Policing Higher Education, and Dominguez has addressed academic freedom through her work with the World Anthropological Union and the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences. This discussion centers on recent (2024-25) attacks on critical thought at United States tertiary institutions, situating them within longer histories of repression (e.g., the McCarthy era) and the global situation. Darian-Smith and Dominguez explore distinctions between free speech and academic freedom, arguing that the present political moment constitutes an unprecedented assault on higher education and research. They highlight how anthropology programs and cognate disciplines are especially vulnerable and discuss less visible modes of suppression, including digital surveillance, academic precarity, and weak collective organizing, while also pointing to tools and strategies for resistance.