IN THIS ARTICLE, I WILL ARGUE that movements to restrictacademic freedom- a term I will clarify momentarily- are perniciousindependently of their political affiliations,but most concretely identified andusefully contested when we investigate their strategic character, both tacit andexplicit.This article will investigate and assess that strategic character.Today anumber of small but persistent interest groups endeavor to reorganize universitystructures and to alter universities\u27 relationships with funding sources. Thesegroups would not be as numerous or effective without their political affiliations,which influence their strategic choices through a tropological representation ofArabs and Muslims. Such groups capitalize on particular forms of anti-Arabracism and Islamophobia, using those sentiments to rationalize and justify thesort of restrictions they favor. The groups,then,are partly commodities of anationalisticdispositionthatexistedbefore9/11 but one that gained widespread validation afterwar
