We were thrilled to have the opportunity to speak with Sarah McLaughlin about her new book, Authoritarians in the Academy: How the Internationalization of Higher Education and Borderless Censorship Threaten Free Speech.

As a Senior Scholar at The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, Sarah is one of the leading experts on how global censorship intersects with free expression issues in the United States.

In this episode of Banished, Sarah discusses her book’s key findings and offers her reflections on the nerve-wracking, topsy-turvy free speech climate in the United States today.

Show Notes

* Follow Sarah on twitter here, bluesky here

* Here is the official Johns Hopkins Press link to Sarah’s book

* On international student enrollment, see “International Students by the Numbers,” Inside Higher Ed

* On Confucius Institutes, see Ethan Epstein, “How China Infiltrated U.S. Classrooms,” Politico Magazine, January 17, 2018

* On the Olympics poster controversy at George Washington University, see:

* Amna’s interview with Badiucao, the poster’s artist

* Jeff’s article on the dust-up in the Chronicle of Higher Education

* this extraordinary open letter from the George Washington University Chinese Students and Scholars Association. On the subject of “sensitivity exploitation,” GW’s CSSA drew quite shamelessly from social justice discourse:

* On the challenges facing China scholars, see:

* Perry Link, “China: The Anaconda in the Chandelier,” New York Review of Books, April 11, 2002

* Sheena Chestnut Greitens and Rory Truex, “Repressive Experiences among China Scholars: New Evidence from Survey Data,” The China Quarterly, May 2019

* On U.S. satellite campuses abroad, see Patrick Jack, “U.S. Universities Eye Branch Campuses as Way to ‘Survive Trump,’” Inside Higher Ed, May 16, 2025

* Sarah describes Northwestern’s cancellation of an event featuring an openly gay musician on its Qatar campus in 2020 here

* On calls to have students, faculty, and staff fired because of disparaging comments about Charlie Kirk after he was murdered, see:

* Ellie Davis, Gavin Escott, and Claire Murphy, “Employees and Students at These Colleges Have Been Punished for Comments on Charlie Kirk’s Death,” Chronicle of Higher Education, September 17, 2025

* Stephanie Saul, “The Firing of Educators Over Kirk Comments Follows a Familiar Playbook,” New York Times, September 22, 2025

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