Since the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff, Brazilian democracy has been the scene of clashes and conflicts that put it at risk. Jair Bolsonaro took office in January 2019, turning his then reactionary and authoritarian rhetoric into a government speech. Among the many targets of their attacks are public universities. This article aims to contribute to the analysis of this scenario, firstly by offering a record of the expedients and ideas mobilized on different fronts of persecution and institutional heckle. Three recent episodes are described in order to indicate points where today radicalized actions and discourses are linked to older social processes, especially the mismatches between redemocratization and neoliberal reforms within and outside the university environment. Placing current attacks in this perspective seems critical to understand their meanings and the conditions that made them possible.