Jason Stanley, a Yale professor specialising in fascism, has accepted a position at the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, citing concerns that the United States is 'tilting towards a fascist dictatorship'. Stanley, author of the 2018 book How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them, told the philosophy website Daily Nous that his decision was influenced by the recent capitulation of Columbia University to demands from the Trump administration in exchange for restoring $400 million in federal funding.
Stanley said Columbia's actions, which included crackdowns on protests and internal reviews of academic programmes, demonstrated a 'losing strategy' that he fears other universities, including Yale, are adopting. 'You've got to just band together and say an attack on one university is an attack on all universities,' he said. 'Columbia was just such a warning.' He added that he was not concerned about his own scholarship at Yale but felt the broader climate against universities made it difficult for non-citizens like himself to speak out.
Stanley's departure has drawn attention on social media, with journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones writing on Bluesky: 'When scholars of authoritarianism and fascism leave US universities because of the deteriorating political situation here, we should really worry.' In a statement, Yale said it respects faculty members' career decisions and remains a 'home to world-class faculty members'.
Stanley, whose grandmother fled Berlin with his father in 1939, compared his move to leaving Germany in the 1930s. 'It's a family tradition,' he said. He framed his relocation not as fleeing but as 'joining Canada, which is a target of Trump, just like Yale is a target of Trump'. The Munk school is building a programme focused on the 'international struggle against democracy', which Stanley described as an 'exciting intellectual opportunity'.
