Latitudes: Why Universities Can Be a ‘Real Thorn in the Flesh’ of Authoritarian Leaders

A college president on higher ed’s role in democracy and dissent. Plus, another round in the debate over international-recruitment agents. ADVERTISEMENT [Latitudes Logo]( Did someone forward you this newsletter? [Sign up free]( to receive your own copy. You can now read The Chronicle on [Apple News]( [Flipboard]( and [Google News](. The power and vulnerability of colleges amid rising authoritarianism During the Covid-19 pandemic, Shalini Randeria started a podcast, [Democracy in Action]( on which she and leading scholars or public figures grapple with meaty themes, like climate justice, women’s rights, and the intersection of democracy with populism. A sociologist and social anthropologist, she has long explored such ideas in her research. But the issues are not just academic for Randeria, who in 2021 became president and rector of Central European University, a liberal-arts institution started by George Soros, a financier and civil-society activist. Even before Randeria’s arrival — she is the institution’s first female leader and its first from the global South — Central European University had relocated its main campus from Budapest to Vienna, under [political pressure]( from Hungary’s nationalist prime minister, Viktor Orbán, that threatened its survival. (The university, which is accredited in Austria and the United States, ultimately won its case before the [European Court of Justice]( Under Randeria’s leadership, the university continues to champion academic freedom and extend higher education’s reach to parts of the world where learning can be threatened by politics and even war. Most recently, faculty members put together the [Invisible University for Ukraine]( designing and co-teaching online courses with Ukrainian colleagues, on topics ranging from literature to post-conflict reconstruction. Randeria led a class on imperialism and nationalism. Randeria spoke with Latitudes about culture wars around the globe, educating students to be comfortable with difference, and why universities may particularly threaten autocratic-leaning leaders. The interview has been condensed and edited for clarity. Are there lessons you’ve learned from dealing with political pressures firsthand? We learned the lesson that the university is a fragile institution, that it is very dependent on the conditions under which it operates in order to retain its autonomy as an institution and its values of academic freedom. But it also reminded us that the university is a powerful institution — because were it not for that fact, an authoritarian regime would not spend so much time and energy. Right, why else bother? It shows you the fear and anxiety that authoritarian rulers have against autonomous institutions, civil-society institutions of all kinds, but also universities as spaces in which there is critical thought. That is something that every authoritarian regime fears. It’s a mistake to divide the world into authoritarian and democratic systems. I think we need to look very much more carefully at the practices of what I call soft authoritarianism. The U.S. would be a very good example. Look at some of your states which are banning textbooks because they don’t like what they say on gender or LGBT rights. You have governors who are threatening universities with dire consequences if they don’t fall in line. You have backlash from the right wing on wokeness and cancel culture. Universities, and especially liberal intellectuals, have become targets of right-wing populists, even in democracies. In France, under Macron, you had a large number of French intellectuals making a case that gender studies and critical-race studies and postcolonial studies are not disciplines, that these are [American fads]( that should not be taught and have no place in the French university. Is there something about universities, about academics, that make them especially troubling for some leaders? The backbone of a democracy is dissent, is argument, is critical thought. It’s diversity, pluralism. If you want to stifle both pluralism and dissent, then you attack universities. As is the case with most of these authoritarian governments, if your idea is that higher education is about indoctrination and not education, then an autonomous university is a real thorn in your flesh. This is a presumption on my part, but probably the fear of universities is that we are educating critical, independent thinkers for the next generations. What ought university leaders be doing in this time of threats to academic freedom and autonomy? I wish I had a good set of prescriptions, but I’ll tell you two or three things which strike me. One, I think it would be a good idea to include indices for academic freedom in [university rankings](. If you do that, the Chinese university rankings will fall immediately. The other interesting thing for me is this debate, in the U.S. especially, is on the freedom of expression of faculty. But how about our students? I’m very mindful of how vulnerable our students are because these days you have all of these authoritarian regimes which are monitoring the social-media accounts of students abroad. We had a student who was in jail in [Egypt]( for 18 months because of some criticism he had voiced on a Facebook account here of the Egyptian regime. It’s part of our mission to protect and safeguard and practice democracy. The classroom becomes a space, when you have students of diverse backgrounds, where students learn to respect difference, to learn to tolerate views that are not their own, and even that they disagree with. The university can make a huge difference if it sees itself as a training ground for democracy, in the way in which it teaches, in the way it allows differences to be articulated, tolerance to be practiced. Central European University has a large population of Ukrainian students, and you’ve put together programming to reach students still in Ukraine. How do you see your role in supporting students affected by the war? We brought together 26 of these students to our summer school. I spent an evening with them, and it was one of the most moving experiences I’ve had in the last year. The very first question that this 18-year-old girl asked me was, How does one forgive someone who has done such awful things to your fellow citizens and country? I said, well, there are very many views on this, but let me tell you something about Gandhi. Because he had very interesting views on the whole question of morality in politics and what forgiveness could mean and why the perpetrators of injustice are as deformed by that injustice as victims are. You ask yourself, who am I to give advice sitting in the luxury of Vienna while your families are being bombed, your fathers and brothers are on the front? But they were asking the questions. That is where the university is a unique institution. It can reach out in these very troubled times and can be a space for refuge from these harsh conditions of life. It’s about the life of the mind and to keep that open space for people. ADVERTISEMENT NEWSLETTER [Sign Up for the Teaching Newsletter]( Find insights to improve teaching and learning across your campus. Delivered on Thursdays. To read this newsletter as soon as it sends, [sign up]( to receive it in your email inbox. Appeals court won’t rehear OPT lawsuit A federal appeals court has [rejected]( a legal challenge to Optional Practical Training, affirming an earlier ruling that backed the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s authority to create the temporary work program for recent international graduates of American colleges. A technology-workers group had asked the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to [review]( an October ruling by a three-judge panel that [upheld the program’s legality](. But a majority of the judges declined to reopen the [long-running case](. Despite being in the legal crosshairs, Optional Practical Training is popular among international students. In the 2021 academic year, nearly a fifth of all student-visa holders in the United States were taking part in the program, according to the Institute of International Education. FROM THE CHRONICLE STORE [Solving Higher Ed's Staffing Crisis - The Chronicle Store]( [Solving Higher Ed's Staffing Crisis]( The Covid-19 pandemic upended norms surrounding how academic institutions work, putting the relationship between colleges and their staff members under greater stress. [Order your copy]( to explore how higher education can better manage a crucial part of its work force. Considering using international-recruitment agents? These experts have thoughts The use of agents in international-student admissions has become increasingly common, although American colleges have been slower to embrace the practice of paying outside recruiters than their counterparts in other parts of the world. The Chronicle recently convened a panel of experts to talk about ethics and best practices when it comes to agents. Here are a few takeaways from our discussion: Be transparent. Brett Berquist, assistant vice chancellor for engagement at the University of Canterbury, in New Zealand, urged openness in working with agents. His institution lists agents it works with on its website, and the New Zealand government has even published student-visa-acceptance rates by agent in India. That lack of opaqueness should extend to agent agreements, Berquist said, with colleges clearly articulating their goals and expectations up front. “It’s all about transparency, and we believe strongly in that,” he said. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Derrick Alex, lead for international admissions and recruitment at the University of Houston, said that colleges new to the use of agents don’t have to start from scratch but can draw from a growing body of research and best practices. Groups such as the [National Association for College Admission Counseling]( and the [American International Recruitment Council]( of which he serves as president, offer information about vetting potential agents, setting up global networks, and establishing ethical “guardrails.” Agents aren’t a short-term fix. College leaders may embrace agents as a fast and cheap way to recruit international students. They’re neither, said Eddie West, assistant dean of international strategy and programs at San Diego State University. “It is absolutely not a short-term, ‘just turn the spigot on and the students will come’” approach, said West, co-editor of a book, [Student Recruitment Agents in International Education]( to be published this year. “To do the work right, to do the work productively, to do the work responsibly, you really have to invest time, budget, and resources.” Still, some colleges may take a pass on agents as part of their international-recruitment strategy. Ffiona Rees, deputy director for undergraduate admissions at the University of California at Los Angeles, said her institution instead invests in staff training and relies on networks of alumni and current students and their families. All nine University of California campuses have a policy against using agents in undergraduate admissions. “I have yet to be convinced,” Rees said, that an agent can “talk with passion about the type of student who is truly going to thrive at your particular institution.” If you missed the virtual event, you can still [watch it on demand](. Want more coverage of agents or other aspects of international recruitment? Send your ideas and questions to me at karin.fischer@chronicle.com. SPONSOR CONTENT | Huron Consulting [Meeting the Talent Demands of an Uncertain Time in Higher Education]( Around the globe A bill proposed in the Texas Legislature would block citizens, including students and researchers, of China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia from [purchasing property]( in the state. Nine Republican-led states are asking in a [lawsuit]( that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which provides legal protections for undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children, be phased out over the next two years. Indiana is considering legislation to permit students who have attended state schools but lack legal residency to qualify for [lower in-state tuition rates](. Low-income students who live within 45 miles of Mexico’s border with California could qualify for in-state tuition at one of seven southern California community colleges, under a [proposal](. Colorado State University has apologized after fans [heckled]( an opposing Utah State University player who is from Ukraine by chanting “Russia.” Two professors at Iranian universities have been fired because of their support for [student protests](. Afghanistan’s Taliban government is barring female students from taking [college-entrance exams]( and warning universities they could be punished if they allow women to sit for the tests. India’s University Grants Commission has extended the [deadline for comments]( on a proposal to allow foreign universities to set up overseas campuses in the country. Taiwan is seeking to recruit 200,000 international students who it hopes will stay and find jobs after graduation as a way to cope with [skilled-worker shortages](. A surge in obituaries of top Chinese scholars could offer clues into the true scope of that country’s recent wave of [Covid-19 deaths](. ADVERTISEMENT And finally … Look, we all have our stories of travel gone wrong. An Ontario couple returning from their honeymoon in Greece was told that their luggage was lost, despite the fact that a tracking tag in their suitcase showed that it was in a Toronto suburb. After four months of waiting, they decided to hunt down the missing bag on their own, following the tracker to a storage unit … filled to the ceiling with other luggage. Yes, the couple [got their bag back](. Clarification: Last week’s newsletter mentioned the School for International Training’s hybrid low-residency model for its graduate programs. The institute also offers a full-time global master’s degree in which students study at two or more of its centers around the world. Thanks for reading. I always welcome your feedback and ideas for future reporting, so drop me a line at karin.fischer@chronicle.com. You can also connect with me on [Twitter]( or [LinkedIn](. If you like this newsletter, please share it with colleagues and friends. 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