The coloniality of power: a critical examination of racialized educational censorship in the United States of America and Germany

Education in the U.S. has become a central battleground in contemporary culture wars, with classrooms, curricula, and educators increasingly targeted by political mandates, parental activism, and media-driven moral panics. These pressures have fueled academic repression, including efforts to suppress critical race theory, restrict diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, and limit professional autonomy. Such measures not only silence dissent but also constrain resources addressing racialized, gendered, and marginalized histories. This conceptual article offers a comparative analysis of U.S. academic repression in the 2010s–2020s and pre-WWII Germany in the 1930s–1940s. We argue that both contexts reflect the coloniality of power, and perpetuated through capitalism, colonialism, and patriarchy. By foregrounds these parallels, our framework situates contemporary struggles within the colonial matrix of power and extends scholarly debates on academic freedom.