<p>This article employs the concept of ‘affective imaginaries’ to examine the influence of right-wing populism on higher education. The analysis shows how emotions such as fear, contempt, and security nurture populist imaginings. In particular, it explores how populist affects, particularly security and its effects on free speech debates, generate and sustain imaginaries of distrust that prove resistant to change within higher education institutions. The discussion turns to contesting affective imaginaries to identify remedial pathways that foster safe spaces through affects mitigating insecurity. This affective-political perspective raises questions about necessary interventions in European higher education, emphasizing affective practices, spaces, and policies to challenge populist imaginings and build more inclusive imaginaries, while taking populist critiques seriously. The argument advanced is that confronting populist imaginaries and affects requires offering alternatives that contest the portrayal of universities as institutions serving a global elite through globalization and inclusion/diversity agendas.</p>