Sarah McLaughlin
FIRE Staff Speaker
Sarah graduated magna cum laude from Drexel University in 2014 with a B.S. in political science and a minor in history. She is Senior Scholar, Global Expression at FIRE and analyzes the relationship between free expression in the United States and global censorship. She is also the author of the book Authoritarians in the Academy: How the Internationalization of Higher Education and Borderless Censorship Threaten Free Speech (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2025.) Her writing about global free speech issues has been featured in publications including Foreign Policy, The Guardian, The Boston Globe, MSNBC, Times Higher Education, and The Los Angeles Times.
Recent Writings
- How the unraveling of Jason Arday’s career and the UK’s censorship collided,
- Countries are hiding censorship in 'cybercrime' bills. A UN treaty could make things worse.,
- Australia targets Telegram as Russia charges its founder with terrorism,
- UK police review politician’s repost of guillotine art on a T-shirt,
- This European country launched a task force to target ‘hate speech.’ Now a journalist who insulted politicians is going to prison.,
- Are AI companies doing authoritarians’ dirty work?,
- The crusade to ban teens from social media is advancing across Europe,
- German bill would criminalize denying Israel’s right to exist,
- Canada is considering action against ‘false and misleading information.’ But exactly what action is a mystery.,
- Will Germany amend one of its most censorial laws?,
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