Why are US campuses facing an orgy of state repression in the ‘land of the free’?

Across the world people have been shocked by social media footage of heavily armed law enforcement officers arresting peacefully protesting students and professors at university campuses around the United States. The so-called “land of the free and home of the brave” looks neither free nor brave – except for the brave protesters who continue to stand up to state and university repression.

Although government repression of student protests is not unique to either the US or this particular period, the current orgy of state repression is very much an illustration of the current crisis of liberal democracy as it is squeezed by both illiberalism and neoliberalism.

But let’s take a step back. Ever since the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October, many university campuses have been on edge. As Israel’s retaliation in Gaza reached what the United Nations has called genocidal levels, student protests started to appear at some university campuses. Although there were troubling incidents of antisemitism – and Islamophobia – the protests, overall, are neither antisemitic nor violent. This notwithstanding, the far right has jumped on them to intensify its attack on universities.

The far right has portrayed universities as “hotbeds of terrorist sympathizers” and “wokeness” that threaten core “American values” like freedom of speech. In far-right propaganda, universities are the dystopian future of the whole country, where women, non-whites and LGBTQ+ people oppress “real Americans”, ie white, Christian conservatives. And their propaganda has paid off. When Donald Trump launched his campaign, the public image of universities in the US was already not in great shape.

In 2015, a modest majority of 57% of Americans had “a great deal” or “quite a