"A leading expert on authoritarianism and history professor at New York University, Ben-Ghiat is the author of numerous books on Italian fascism, including... Strongman: Mussolini to the Present―which compares Donald Trump to Mussolini, Hitler, Franco, and Pinochet, among other dictators. She... has been a vocal critic of Donald Trump, regularly connecting his temperament and viewpoints to... dictators she studies. Ben-Ghiat had been invited by the Naval Academy’s history department to deliver the Bancroft Memorial Lecture... which... would focus on "what happens to militaries under authoritarian rule." ...[H]owever, the Naval Academy canceled the lecture ...after the urging of Congressman ..."