Foreword – (Un)silencing academia part three

In a 2021 speech at the US National Conservatism Conference, then Republican Ohio senator J.D. Vance launched a scathing attack on higher education, identifying it as a hostile institution trying to control knowledge and truth and calling for people “to honestly and aggressively attack the universities in this country”. Vance touched on all the key talking points in the far-right anti-education playbook, from the science behind COVID lockdowns and transgender research to cancel culture and diversity, equality, and inclusion (DEI). He even prefaced his speech with an explanation of the Red Pill “philosophy”, a concept prevalent in online male supremacist groups, which describes the process of becoming enlightened to the conspiracies underpinning institutional “wokeness”. In case there was any doubt about precisely who is to blame for the current threat to the United States and Western civilisation more broadly, he finished with a quote from Richard Nixon: “The professors are the enemy”.