How Foreign Governments Police U.S. Speech

Today’s guest is Sarah McLaughlin, a senior scholar at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) and author of Authoritarians in the Academy: How the Internationalization of Higher Education and Borderless Censorship Threaten Free Speech.

She explains how governments in places like China and the United Arab Emirates restrict academic freedom and expression not just in their own countries but also at colleges and universities in America by exploiting speech codes and threatening to end lucrative satellite campus arrangements.

McLaughlin and Gillespie also talk about whether it was a good idea for American comedians to censor their material at Saudi Arabia’s Riyadh Comedy Festival and what to make of President Donald Trump’s repeated minimization of the murder of Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi operatives.

The Reason Interview with Nick Gillespie, goes deep with the artists, entrepreneurs, and scholars who are making the world a more libertarian—or at least a more interesting—place by championing free minds and free markets.

0:00—Introduction

1:14—Trump’s response to Khashoggi’s murder

7:26—The Riyadh Comedy Festival

11:29—Foreign influence on U.S. college campuses

23:55—The NBA and the Chinese government

28:39—Sensitivity exploitation

34:36—Changes to campus culture

39:46—Satellite campuses

43:50—Matthew Hedges and the UAE

50:03—McLaughlin’s path to FIRE

51:55—Solutions to campus censorship

58:12—Climate of free speech under Trump

Upcoming Reason Events

Reason Versus debate: Big Tech Does More Good Than Harm on December 10

• Producer: Paul Alexander
• Audio Mixer: Ian Keyser