Silencing Dissent: Academic Freedom and Transnational Suppression of Palestinian Solidarity

Abstract

Israel’s war on Gaza has prompted a wave of protests against human rights violations that has spread across most European countries. As universities have become arenas of contestation, there has been an increase in forms of repression of academic freedom and of political rights within academia. Our systematic, case-oriented analysis of an original database enables us to identify specific repertoires of repression employed by different institutions, as well as the characteristics of the targeted academics. By comparing Germany and the United States as case studies of high and increasing levels of repression—albeit characterized by differing systems of higher education and conceptions of academic freedom—we analyze the strategies used by these actors and how they interact. In this article, we focus on the mechanisms through which repression has been promoted, anchored in a resignification of antisemitism that treats it as distinct from racism and accords it a special status in the defense of Western civilization. We use the concept of moral panic to analyze the construction of a narrative that portrays a specific challenge to society’s fundamental values, which has resulted in the scapegoating of the Left and migrants. We also identify the main moral panic entrepreneurs responsible for the creation of this environment both within and outside universities.