Higher Education and Authoritarianism: Lessons From Afghanistan for the US

By Abdul Aziz Mohibbi
May 15, 2025

Published by The Diplomat

The Taliban’s return to Kabul in the summer of 2021 sent shock waves through the university system. Students at Bamyan University, where I was chancellor at the time, fled back to their homes in rural areas. As Taliban soldiers poured into the town, a Taliban official summoned me and asked where the university kept our weapons. We were a school, I told him – we had no weapons.

In Kabul, many faculty and students, particularly those associated with Western governments, rushed to the airport and attempted to flee the country. The American University of Afghanistan pulled out completely. Western countries welcomed some scholars, like me, in countries ranging from Ireland to the United States and India. Many of those who could not leave the country went into hiding as the Taliban brought their version of moral purity to universities. 

Almost four years later, however, the results of Afghanistan’s sharp swing towards authoritarianism has been uneven and far more complicated than many guessed in those early days.

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