Author of "On Tyranny", 2 other Yale Professors flee to Canada

[orangecrush]

“Asked whether she believes other professors might be encouraged to leave the United States, Shore wrote that she believes many of her colleagues will consider relocating due to the current political climate, which she deemed an ‘American descent into fascism.’”

https://bsky.app/profile/gtconway.bsky.social/post/3llfjylefxc2q

"Outspoken Fascism Scholars Leave Yale for Canada"

"As the Trump administration escalates its attack on universities, three fascism scholars and vocal Trump critics are leaving Yale University for the University of Toronto. But their given reasons for crossing the border vary.

Jason Stanley, Jacob Urowsky Professor of Philosophy at Yale and author of multiple books—including How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them—said he finally accepted Toronto’s long-standing offer for a position on Friday after seeing Columbia University “completely collapse and give in to an authoritarian regime.”

In a move that has unnerved faculty across the country, Columbia’s administration largely conceded to demands from the Trump administration, which had cut $400 million of the university’s federal grants and contracts for what it said was Columbia’s failure to address campus antisemitism. Among other moves, the Ivy League institution gave campus officers arrest authority and appointed a new senior vice provost to oversee academic programs focused on the Middle East."

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty-issues/academic-freedom/2025/03/26/fascism-scholars-trump-critics-leave-yale-canada

Same thing happened in Germany in the 30's.

Massive exodus of intellectuals to the U.S..

The canary in this coal mine is dead.

[AmericaUnderSiege]

1. I support academics, but there is a major lack of fortitude going on.

One of the primary mechanisms by which fascism gains strength is cowardice of the wise. You can't do your bit and stand guard on the wall for a while? You can't fight a little? You have to run because the air smells bad and the wine tastes cheap? You can't lower yourselves to be guardsmen for just a while?

[moondust]

2. I don't blame them.

They can continue monitoring, teaching, writing, and warning from a much safer environment in Canada out of easy reach of the fascist madman who is flouting the law and going after anybody he doesn't like.

[AmericaUnderSiege]

3. I do blame them.

Freedom isn't free, and they are nowhere near under real threat. They have, in fact, created a threat to people less powerful than themselves by fleeing.

[yardwork]

16. What?!

Tim Snyder will continue to write books and teach about fascism while working in Canada. It will be harder to do that if he stays here and Yale fires him. Columbia just caved. Is Yale next?

And the thousands of scientists whose work is being defunded in the U.S. will be able to continue their life saving work only if their labs are funded - which will require them to go somewhere else.

[AmericaUnderSiege]

21. He can't move to Canada *after* challenging Yale to fire him?

They can't run after making their bosses make a choice, instead of preempting the choice and disgracing people who potentially might have risen to the occasion? The self-involvement is thick.

[yardwork]

33. What brave thing are you doing, anonymous keyboard warrior?

Snyder challenges Trump and Putin every day. So does his wife. They have children. Snyder really could "fall out a window."

If I were in his place and I was offered a job in Canada I'd take it in a heartbeat.

[AmericaUnderSiege]

35. I'm not in a position to do brave things. They are.

I haven't put myself on a pedestal, and implicitly called myself a defender of freedom in return for large paychecks. They have.

And I'm not abandoning literally every part of a self-assigned role.

[AmericaUnderSiege]

42. Academics and experts are not fleeing, on the whole.

Are they stupid? What exactly are you saying?

[LisaL]

48. Give it time.

How long exactly have Trump been president? Not every scientist has job offers from other countries YET.

[AmericaUnderSiege]

50. If our science and scholarly community only exists at the pleasure of one person

then we already had much bigger problems than we knew. I don't think that's quite the case.

[kerry-is-my-prez]

62. They were leaving Florida because of DeSantis.

They are cracking down on Social Work programs in Florida. Top educators have been leaving the state. Students too. How can you have a Social Work program without DEI?

[LisaL]

22. So what are they supposed to do?

They can see what is happening. Columbia had its federal funding frozen, by the way. And despite efforts to "comply" the funds have not been unfrozen. If these fund remain frozen, there will be mass firings. Other Universities are under the same threat. They see the writing on the wall.

[AmericaUnderSiege]

23. Probably what the vast majority of their colleagues are doing.

Gearing up to fight. Columbia is a fucking Ivy League university packed to the gills with rich alumni. They have no excuses. NONE.

[LisaL]

26. Majority of their colleagues could soon become unemployed.

Not everybody is willing to live under the bridge.

[AmericaUnderSiege]

27. You think Columbia gets the majority of its funding from the federal govt? nt

[LisaL]

28. 400 millions pays for a lot of jobs.

NT

[yardwork]

34. Yes, they do. So does every other research institution.

Rich alumni can't cover a billion dollars in research funding.

Your posts here are uninformed. You're repeating superficial right-wing talking points.

[AmericaUnderSiege]

37. Let me get this straight.

Universities know they're going to lose the funding anyway, because the occupation regime is at war with America. This is a fact. So the people in question are heroically "running" from the possibility that they might be fired as a result of defunding, eventually, by voluntarily giving up their jobs and abandoning their students and staff to an uncertain fate.

And we're supposed to sympathize with that. And I'm "uninformed" for noticing it.

[yardwork]

40. Bullshit.

You are repeating hysterical right wing lies.

[AmericaUnderSiege]

43. Nothing I've said is right-wing or a lie.

I think I'm done with you, buddy.

[yardwork]

44. Report to your employer that you failed to persuade at least one DUer.

You're not very good at this. Came in too hot.

[ObscurePiton]

54. Maybe they should be.

But that's neither here nor there. We're talking about a preeminent academic, who has published popular books, who works at a private institution that is sitting on an endowment in the neighborhood of literally tens of billions of dollars.

This was a chickenshit move by any objective measure.

[Kali]

58. LOL

"partner" get lost in the dryer?

[ObscurePiton]

59. Nope.

This is not the garment you're looking for, detective.

[Bettie]

24. And yet....

academics are among the first to be imprisoned and killed in a fascist regime.

[AmericaUnderSiege]

32. Usually insider political enemies and journalists first.

There's a little buffer zone. But even so, what did these people think they were signing up for by being scholars on the topic of fighting fascism? A pat on the head and an eternal source of funding? You chose a field of scholarship that is inherently militant. So be militant.

[Irish_Dem]

29. Trump with destroy them, kill or jail them. Or bankrupt them.

They need to go to safety and continue writing.

[AmericaUnderSiege]

41. That's not what's going on.

And Canada is not where people go who feel physically unsafe from things happening in the US. That would be like fleeing Hitler into Belgium.

[dutch777]

52. If the leadership of the institution just roll over, I can see how individual professors may see little hope.

And if your position is tied to research that now becomes unfunded or essentially banned by some Trump/DOGE action and that is the passion that drives your career, not hard to see how someone would just choose to move on. I certainly left jobs when the focus of the work shifted to areas in which I had no interest or didn't see a future.

[AmericaUnderSiege]

53. That's certainly the economic perspective, but I don't buy experts on fascism surrendering without a fight.

We're being fed this narrative to demoralize us.

[Kali]

57. you know, that is pretty disgusting

the academics and intellectuals are often next in line after the most vulnerable people to be attacked and destroyed by these kinds of regimes. the thinkers are ACTUALLY dangerous to the powerful. their jobs are to educate and research and explain the world, not be fighters on the front lines. I don't blame ANYONE for trying to stay safe but I especially don't blame academics. the history of what can happen to them is not pleasant.

oh you were so offensive about this you got blocked. yeah, not a good look anti-intellectualism. there are plenty of things to criticize in academia but your choices originate from right wing, authoritarian/fascist sources.

[Iris]

61. The administrators should be doing that and it's been clear for at least a decade to most of us on higher Ed that they

have no problem throwing a lowly faculty member under the bus

[LS0999]

4. I believe we could be the past the point of no return

Either way we're in for world war III that Don starts with NATO or a civil war.

[notinkansas]

5. Timothy Snyder is the author of 'On Tyranny'.

Don't think he's fled to Canada.

[mahina]

8. ʻ Fledʻ wouldnʻt be my choice of words, but he and his wife are teaching in Toronto

The article says that he they decided after the November election. This actually is momentous although he travels a lot. This feels like he’s making sure his family is safe. As a big fan of his work, I appreciate that.

I believe I posted videos of his YouTube cast lectures at Yale on the history of Ukraine. It was a few years ago. He is an extraordinary courageous man.

[notinkansas]

12. You're right.

Bad choice of words on my part.

[mahina]

14. Thanks, but no happy dance over here for once in my life hearing those words

[orangecrush]

19. Escape

Might be a better word.

In no way do I imply cowardice on their part, just a smart decision.

[SunSeeker]

9. Looks like Snyder did move to Canada.

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/prominent-yale-professors-flee-trumps-america-for-new-roles-at-university-of-toronto/article_e2a89e23-e9e4-49d8-861a-e00807f51bf3.html

He's now listed as Chair in Modern European History at the University of Toronto Munk School...no mention of Yale anymore:
https://munkschool.utoronto.ca/person/timothy-snyder

[notinkansas]

13. A real loss for the US.

[mahina]

15. 100% true

[SunSeeker]

60. And contradicts his message to not cut and run but to stand up to authoritarians.

[Celerity]

10. Three prominent Yale professors depart for Canadian university, citing Trump fears

History department power couple Timothy Snyder and Marci Shore and philosophy professor Jason Stanley will begin teaching at the University of Toronto’s renowned Munk School in fall 2025.

https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2025/03/27/three-prominent-yale-professors-depart-for-canadian-university-citing-trump-fears/

Three prominent critics of President Donald Trump are leaving Yale’s faculty — and the United States — amid attacks on higher education to take up positions at the University of Toronto in fall 2025.

Philosophy professor Jason Stanley announced this week that he will leave Yale, while history professors Timothy Snyder and Marci Shore, who are married, decided to leave around the November elections. The three professors will work at Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy.

Stanley wrote to the Daily Nous that his decision to leave was “entirely because of the political climate in the United States.” On Wednesday, he told the Guardian that he chose to move after seeing how Columbia University handled political attacks from Trump.

After the Trump administration threatened to deport two student protesters at Columbia and revoked $400 million in research funding from the school, Columbia agreed on Friday to concede to a series of demands from the Trump administration that included overhauling its protest policies and imposing external oversight on the school’s Middle Eastern studies department.

snip

[notinkansas]

11. I didn't see Snyder's name in the original post.

Thanks for the correction.

[orangecrush]

18. It is him

And yes he is going to Canada.

[Meowmee]

6. My father came here in the brain drain from Canada

Now it will be the other way around.

[yardwork]

38. This is just the beginning.

Thousands of biomedical researchers have had their funding cut. The younger ones will go to other countries, and the U.S. will no longer be where new discoveries are found.

I work with scientists who were on the verge of curing cancers, Alzheimer's disease, ALS, and every other disease we know. Decades of research have been destroyed.

We have no idea what we just lost. Our only hope is that these scientists find a home somewhere else, and that home allows them to publish their results.

[Meowmee]

45. Yes my thoughts when they canceled research funding were

it is going to be a disaster. It's terrible. But there are other countries where they will hopefully find a home etc. As long as they have their work saved etc. and new funding is found the work will go on.

[yardwork]

47. It isn't that simple, unfortunately.

Many kinds of research require years of uninterrupted data collection. Older researchers aren't going to be able to move. Many researchers will return to China, which will own their research. Others will go into industry, which will own their research.

The loss of openly shared, collaborative global research can't be duplicated easily or soon. It may never be duplicated again. Some broken things can't be fixed.

I'm older. Everything I've ever believed in is being destroyed. On a personal level, I grieve for what's coming next and how it will affect my grown children.

If I were younger I would go to another country now

[Meowmee]

51. I understand something about research

My father was a scientist who worked all over the world doing research for over 40 years. Much of the work he published is not lost, and is still freely available to many. Maybe it is different in the medical field if pharma is involved but I read many medical research studies in journals online myself. Although most research is initially funded by government in small research groups and then bought by companies if it looks promising.

But after this country murdered him his last work on a new particle discovery was never published and my brother does not feel able to complete it. I hope they will make their work available online etc. before they go into industry or to China etc. I said they all need to do that when they started messing with the cdc and other websites etc. and defunding everything. People were warning each other to do that.

Yes, good idea to leave if people can. So sorry this is happening. It is truly horrific. 😢

[redstatebluegirl]

56. My husband feels the same.

His life work is biomedical research. He is a few years from retirement but still has a couple of grad students. One comes from a Trump loving family. If his grant is not renewed they will need to find a new lab and he will take early retirement and take a temporary position somewhere closer to our family if he can find one. We have always been careful with our money but we have really shut down any unnecessary spending.

We can survive but it will not be the retirement we invisioned when we chose to educate young people instead of going to industry 32 years ago.

It makes me sad, but dealing with this group of young people has weakened our resolve. Combine that with the assault on academics and we just want out. We want to find a small house back home and sit on the porch and read.

We can also speak our minds again something we have not been able to do living in a red red state. Bless his heart, my dear husband just looks depressed at the thought of shutting down his lab.

The university will be happy, one less liberal on campus. Although he never took his political views into the classroom. He would talk about climate change, medical testing of minorities things like that but he even stopped doing that in 2016.

I am just so sad.....our life's work seems unimportant.

[Cha]

7. Good on the Academics! Fortunately they're able

to be accepted in Canada!

TY

[orangecrush]

20. Wish I could go

It's gonna get very ugly here.

[LisaL]

25. Yep, the prominent scientists are in the best position to get job offers from other countries.

There are many less prominent ones who will find it hard to get job offers from other countries. And the science in US is facing major trouble under Trump and company. So a lot of scientists will likely end up unemployed.

[orangecrush]

46. Better for them to go

At least then the world might still benefit.

[tishaLA]

17. I think about the threats to scholars of African American, Women's, LGBTQ, and Chicano studies

Who are more directly in the administration's cross hairs than others in academia. The pressure from the federal government could make them unemployable even though they're some of our brightest minds and most of them lack the kind of institutional support they might receive at Yale.

At least one of our finest universities has allowed an authoritarian creep to become it's de facto provost. These are dangerous times.

[underpants]

30. I was looking for a post about this from yesterday.

I’d guess this is the same source. Attacking the intellectuals is always part of the process. Of course, they’ve been attacking intelligence for decades including changing the news.

[yardwork]

39. Check the responses in this thread.

Textbook example of demonizing and blaming academics.

[underpants]

55. Surprising and disappointing

If I’m personally or professionally in jeopardy and I have the means, I’m getting out of that situation.

[SunSeeker]

63. I don't blame scientists for leaving if they have no work here. But Snyder leaving is a gut punch.

I took Snyder's instruction, "do not obey in advance," to heart. His call to be brave in his book "On Tyranny" was inspiring. As he said, authoritarians only have the power we give them. And being in fear of them and letting them change your behavior gives authoritarians power.

I totally understand why Snyder and his wife took those jobs at Toronto University. As he said, it was for "personal" reasons. He is protecting his family. And he doesn't want to end up like Navalny. I want him to be safe too. But it's still a gut punch.

What Snyder leaving the US tells us is that the US is already too far gone for people to stand up and fight. Maybe it is. But I can't accept that. Not yet. I'm going to keep fighting. I'm going to keep showing up with my protest signs at my local Tesla dealership. I'm going to keep contacting my representatives. Pressure works, as I am sure Snyder will tell us from Toronto.

[orangecrush]

49. So this is what we are facing.

A conclusion reached by people much smarter than myself.