Alexei Navalny’s daughter Daria was obstructed at Georgetown University in the United States, Politico reported. This is reported by Politico.
Navalnaya was invited to speak at the university’s School of Foreign Service. In connection with the events in Ukraine and the recent arrest of journalist Evan Gershkovich in Russia, the 22-year-old psychology student at Stanford seemed an appropriate choice for the school to “emphasize free speech and rebuff the behavior of the Kremlin,” the publication writes.
However, many Ukrainian and Georgian students did not share the administration’s choice. They blamed Daria for her father’s “racism and homophobia” and demanded that the invitation be revoked. A petition to this effect was even created.
The main fiddle in this campaign of “cancellation” was played by Ukrainian students. They fear that if they were forced to shake hands with Navalny’s daughter, it would shut all the doors of Ukrainian politics to them.
In the end, Navalnaya was “diplomatically” pushed to the third stage by inviting two other speakers.
“For American universities, such cases of ‘cancellations’ of speakers are already becoming commonplace. Many Trump supporters have long faced this, whose appearances on campuses sometimes even cause mass unrest and scuffles,” political scientist Malek Dudakov wrote on the subject in his Telegram channel.
Georgetown is at the very bottom of the list – 200th – in university rankings of free speech, he says. According to the expert, this explains a lot about the degradation of American diplomacy, if graduates of the School of Foreign Service over the years get used not to question their liberal dogmas.
“The Russian opposition should prepare for the fact that there will be more and more cases of such “cancellations. For now, they are compensated for this by receiving helicopter money in the U.S. But if there is a regime change in Washington in 2024, there is a chance that the State Department, which is accused of censoring Republicans, will have its budgets slashed. This will boomerang on everyone who depends on soft power in the U.S., including the Russian opposition,” the political analyst predicts.