Abstract:
This essay examines the institutional architecture of censorship in US higher education during geopolitical crisis, with emphasis on the suppression of pro-Palestinian advocacy. Inspired by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky’s propaganda model, this study theorizes a three-step “academic censorship playbook” through which universities manufacture moral panic, weaponize policy and surveillance infrastructures, and retroactively sanitize ideological suppression through narrative revision. Tracing patterns across McCarthyism, the Vietnam era, post-9/11 surveillance, and the 2023–24 campus crackdown, the analysis reveals how institutions operate not as neutral stewards of inquiry but as politically entangled actors beholden to state power, donor influence, and reputational control. This structural alignment has profound implications for academic freedom, institutional legitimacy, and democratic discourse. Furthermore, this research reveals the embedded structural biases within academia that reinforce prevailing sociopolitical hierarchies. The essay concludes by calling for systemic reforms grounded in intellectual pluralism, structural accountability, and strengthened protections for scholarly freedom.
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