Fiat lux (Let there be light), the University of California’s motto, is far from unique. From the University of Oxford (Dominus illuminatio mea—The Lord is my light) to the University of Dhaka (Shikshai alo—Education is light), from the University of Geneva (Post tenebras lux—Light after darkness) to the University of Lisbon (Ad lucem—To the light), from Seoul National University (Veritas lux mea—The truth is my light) to Indian universities that use as their motto a line from the ancient Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (Tamaso ma jyotirgamaya—From darkness, lead me unto light), the tradition of using light as a metaphor for knowledge and enlightenment is ancient and widespread.  

In her new book, Policing Higher Education: The Antidemocratic Attack on Scholars and Why It Matters, Eve Darian-Smith provides an unconventional reading of this motif, interpreting Fiat lux as being “infused with the ideology of manifest destiny, with the aim of bringing learning and civilization to a wilderness occupied by bears, wolves, and ‘savage’ Native peoples.” This small example highlights the book’s central limitations: It fails to sustain a truly global perspective, undermines the very institution it seeks to protect, and ultimately elevates activism over academics and polemics over persuasion.

Darian-Smith, a professor of global studies at the University of California at Irvine, begins with a promising proposal: to provide a transnational account of academic freedom and link attacks on higher education to the global rise of authoritarianism and illiberalism. She pursues this worthy goal across six chapters that explore everything from the rise of anti-democracy movements and their attacks on universities to how the targeting of scholars compares to other forms of oppression. 

Drawing examples from countries like Hungary, India and Brazil, Darian-Smith presents a persuasive case for the similarities among the “lawfare” tactics employed by various authoritarian leaders to police academia. Narrative accounts of international scholars facing harassment or even exile form the most compelling section of the book. Told in the scholars’ own words, these vivid stories effectively humanize the abstract principle of academic freedom and demonstrate the troubling reality of academic repression. 

Additionally, Darian-Smith weaves in efforts to resist these repressive tactics throughout the volume. Indeed, the book’s key strengths include its carefully designed structure and an impressive compilation of programs and organizations that defend academic freedom and support at-risk scholars across the globe.

Despite its broad scope and global ambition, however, the book remains focused heavily on the American scene. While domestic examples of threats to academic freedom are fully fleshed out, international cases are often mentioned in passing rather than developed as equally weighted focal points. This imbalance undercuts the global framing and minimizes the severity of academic repression outside the United States, which is typically far more extreme.

Although Darian-Smith prefaces the book with justifications for a U.S.-centric approach, the reasons— ranging from America’s global influence to her own anxieties about domestic developments—are unconvincing at best, and at worst, reflect the very “Euro-American” centrism she herself critiques. Most tragically, Darian-Smith fails to acknowledge higher education as the shared legacy of human civilization, with a rich history in the non-Western world, instead presenting it as a primarily Western enterprise steeped in the legacy of “colonialism and imperialism.” 

In fact, Darian-Smith weakens the premise of the book—that universities must be defended—by questioning the legitimacy of the academy itself. She portrays the university as an “institution of White privilege” engaged in “epistemic violence” and in need of “decolonization.” Even pragmatic differences in funding, such as greater support for STEM disciplines, are cast as evidence that universities value Whiteness, maleness and status.

This depiction of universities as tainted by historical “oppression over peoples that were colonized and marginalized,” trading solely in “privilege and power,” undermines rather than advances the goal of rallying broad support for scholars. Ironically, in its attempt to mobilize concern for universities, the book mirrors the same divisive rhetoric originating in the academy that has eroded public trust in higher education. Darian-Smith’s portrayal of the university unwittingly exemplifies the broader shift from scholarship to activism within the academy and obscures its character as a self-correcting enterprise oriented toward intellectual progress.   

A remarkably uncharitable portrayal of a conservative worldview infuses the author’s “colonial oppressor” narrative. Indeed, the book often reads as a diatribe against the political right, relying on unwarranted inferences about intentions and motives. Conservatives and Republicans are repeatedly associated with racism, sexism, antisemitism and anti-immigrant sentiment, and are accused of mounting “a decades-long covert assault on higher education and freedom to think.”

Darian-Smith also unconvincingly traces many of the worst recent developments at universities, such as metric-driven accountability, replacement of tenure-track faculty with contingent instructors, corporatized governance, and even the “publish or perish” culture to a coordinated conservative agenda.

This approach is, unfortunately, counterproductive. By undermining the foundations of the university and targeting those who hold different social, economic and political views, Darian-Smith risks alienating the broader public and burying the possibility of nonpartisan alliances.

Ironically, in its attempt to mobilize concern for universities, the book mirrors the same divisive rhetoric originating in the academy that has eroded public trust in higher education.

If higher education is irredeemably oppressive, why should the public rally to protect it? If conservatives are wholesale enemies of free thought, what chance is there of building the broad coalition across political lines necessary to defend academic freedom? She does not entertain these questions.

Moreover, in an attempt to make academic freedom “everyone’s problem,” Darian-Smith expands the concept beyond recognition, at times conflating it with the right to an education. She argues that academic freedom should be seen not as a special privilege afforded to scholars, but as “a collective right based on social responsibility and, by extension, social justice.” Although well-intentioned, this expansion dilutes the concept.

By orienting academic freedom toward social justice and stretching it to encompass broad social and political rights, the clarity of what needs protecting is lost in a sea of progressive political causes. Worse yet, such reframing risks politicizing the very principle meant to shield scholars from political interference. Worthy as they are, social responsibility and social justice must stand, in effect, secondary to the university’s mission.

Perhaps the most serious limitation of the book is its neglect of the university’s true purpose: the pursuit and dissemination of truth. Campus dynamics are described primarily as “battles over economic, political, and social power,” elevating activism to the core of academic life. Although Darian-Smith rightly highlights threats to campus speech, tenure and funding, these issues are consistently framed as political struggles rather than as conditions affecting teaching and research. 

The result is a vision of higher education where activism overshadows intellectual inquiry. Yet the social responsibility of scholars—and by extension, universities—flows from their ability to pursue truth without interference. From policymakers to the broader public, everyone benefits when universities furnish reliable knowledge. What is needed is not more politics, but a renewed commitment to the global and timeless pursuit of truth through research and teaching. 

Darian-Smith is certainly right to warn that attacks on academic freedom threaten the health of democracy. Universities remain vital spaces for cultivating critical thought, civic engagement and global awareness. She’s also right to argue that if universities are to continue these and other important missions, the freedom to think, speak and teach must be vigorously defended. 

In attempting to bolster a defense, however, Darian-Smith weakens her case by casting universities as political battlegrounds rather than intellectual communities. If academic freedom is to be defended, it must be defended not as a political tool, but as the indispensable condition for doing the university’s primary work of truth-seeking and teaching—and doing it well.