“Authoritarians have always gone after education systems and educators,” said Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a professor of history and Italian studies at New York University and author of the best-selling book “Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present.”
“They seek to change the political culture, indoctrinate new generations with their worldview, and eradicate critical thinking.”
Ben-Ghiat delivered the 35th annual Davis, Markert, and Nickerson Lecture on Academic and Intellectual Freedom on Nov. 6 via Zoom rather than in person, citing security concerns.
Her talk, “Intellectual Freedom in an Authoritarian Age,” examined how authoritarians seek to silence intellectuals and all those — researchers, journalists, academics, scientists — who work with fact-based research protocols. This result is the circulation of lies and conspiracy theories.
Following the lecture, a panel discussion of U-M professors took place in the Student Activities Building’s Maize and Blue Auditorium. The conversation, available to watch in person and via livestream, featured:
• Karima Bennoune, the Lewis M. Simes Professor of Law, Law School
• Jean Hong, the Korea Foundation Professor of Korean Studies, associate professor of political science, and associate professor in the International Institute, LSA
• Ronald Grigor Suny, the William H. Sewell Jr. Distinguished University Professor Emeritus of History, professor emeritus of history, and professor emeritus of political Science, LSA
Faculty Senate Chair Derek Peterson served as the panel moderator.
The annual lecture, presented by U-M’s Faculty Senate, honors three university faculty members — Chandler Davis, Clement Markert, and Mark Nickerson — who were punished in the 1950s for refusing to testify before congressional committees about their political beliefs.
Ben-Ghiat began her address by describing what she called the accelerating erosion of democratic norms in the United States. “An authoritarian state is taking shape in the United States at a pace normally seen after a coup,” she said.
The drive to control information and suppress inquiry, she said, has historically been a defining tactic of authoritarian regimes. “Far from being ivory towers, educational institutions are frontline targets in the struggle over democracy.”
Ben-Ghiat illustrated those dynamics with her own recent experience. She was invited to give the Bancroft Lecture in October 2024 at the U.S. Naval Academy — but the address was canceled under political pressure from conservative media and members of Congress.
The argument for canceling her lecture, she said, was spelled out in a congressional letter signed by 17 Republicans.
“The letter depicted me as a partisan historian for my past criticisms of Trump,” she said. “I was unacceptable as a person, regardless of what I might say at Annapolis.
“As someone who has long studied how authoritarians target people as well as institutions, I found it interesting the amount of effort expended on this just weeks before a very, very important election.”
Ben-Ghiat warned that authoritarianism depends on what she called “moral collapse,” or the systematic erosion of truth.
“Autocracies hollow out people as well as institutions,” she said. “They free citizens from the idea that they should tell the truth, attend to facts, and respect others as individuals with dignity and autonomy. Ultimately, authoritarianism requires you not only to betray others, but to betray yourself.”
She said this hollowing out is combined with the dismantling of environmental and economic safeguards: “It’s freedom from every kind of ethical and professional norm that might restrain behavior.”
Across history, Ben-Ghiat said, universities have been “prime hunting grounds” for autocrats seeking to shape national identity and future leaders. In every case, she said, repression begins not with overt violence but with bureaucratic measures — loyalty oaths, curriculum changes, and the quiet policing of ideas.
“They don’t just change what is taught,” she said. “They remake the purpose of education itself, turning spaces of inquiry into spaces of suspicion.”
She cited examples from fascist Italy, where professors were required to swear allegiance to Benito Mussolini; Chile under Augusto Pinochet, where philosophy and social-science departments were shuttered; and Hungary, where Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government placed schools under law-enforcement supervision.
“Instead of places that reward curiosity and solidarity,” she said, “universities become places that reward intolerance and conformity. The result is a climate of fear and a loss of the very habits that make democratic citizenship possible.”
Ben-Ghiat also said, however, that she sees hope in what she called a “global renaissance of nonviolent protest.” Since 2019, she noted, young people in the United States, Iran, China, Israel, Tunisia and Poland have all organized the biggest demonstrations in decades — or ever.
“Each protest is unique, but collectively they express a desire for governance informed by ideals of social justice and respect,” she said. “Authoritarians fear this generation because they demand more freedom, more autonomy, more dignity.”
That spirit, she added, must also positively impact universities. “We have to counter moral collapse with the work of moral renewal that starts from the ground up, from the person up,” Ben-Ghiat said.
“As educators, we can model the values we want to see in the world through civic communication that counters disinformation and builds solidarity.”
Ben-Ghiat closed with a note of determination. “Never underestimate the American people,” she said. “The United States has the potential to defeat this nascent autocracy and come out of it with a stronger, more just, and more democratic democracy.”
Following Ben-Ghiat’s lecture, the panel of U-M faculty past and present reflected on her warnings about authoritarianism.
Bennoune said the lecture underscored the need to view academic and intellectual freedom as human rights. Universities, she said, are “inestimable spaces” whose role in democratic societies “cannot be overstated.”
Drawing on her background in international human rights law and her research on extremism in Algeria, Bennoune urged institutions to defend university autonomy and reject political interference in admissions, curricula, and free expression, describing that independence as “the central pillar of democratic life and human development.”
Hong recalled growing up during South Korea’s military dictatorship and later teaching in Hong Kong during the pro-democracy protests. The introduction of China’s 2020 national security law, she said, triggered widespread self-censorship in classrooms.
“It wasn’t the government’s censorship that hit hardest,” she said. “It was the students’ fear of speaking.”
She described colleagues who continued to teach critical thinking “until someone told us not to,” calling that quiet persistence “a form of solidarity.”
Suny emphasized optimism and resilience. A historian of the Soviet Union, he said suppression of ideas “can be punished and driven underground, but speech and intellectual freedom always find ways to reappear.”
He warned that authoritarian movements in the U.S. aim to control not only government but also civil society and culture, and he urged academics to resist through “honesty, integrity and fearless teaching.”
During a Q&A, questions touched on the role of universities in curbing self-censorship, the relationship between moral and physical violence, and the effectiveness of protest movements. One audience member, Simone Davis, daughter of Chandler Davis, offered a reflection on her father’s lifelong defense of academic freedom.
