The annual Free to Think report prepared by Scholars at Risk and the Academic Freedom Monitoring Project was released in October. There is a lot to digest, but the key takeaway is that the suppression of academic freedom isn’t isolated to the usual authoritarian-led countries. Scholars, students and institutions are increasingly under pressure in traditionally democratic countries.
We all know about the full-out assault on higher education and academics unleashed by the Trump administration in the United States. Since January of this year, the government has used executive orders and funding freezes to force many high-profile institutions to accede to the administration’s partisan demands, including dismantling equity, diversity and inclusion initiatives. Research funding that doesn’t align with the government’s political priorities has been slashed, a move that is leading to the dismantling of research knowledge and infrastructure.
The latest development is the Trump administration’s promise to provide additional funding to nine select universities and colleges if they agree to certain demands. This includes “transforming or abolishing institutional units that purposefully punish, belittle and even spark violence against conservative ideas.” Erwin Chemerinsky, UC Berkeley’s Dean of Law, pulled no punches when he characterized it as “extortion, plain and simple.”
Sadly, the U.S. isn’t the only democracy where academic freedom is in retreat. The Free to Think report details a significant decline in Germany. In one notorious case documented in the report, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research called for an investigation into more than 1,000 professors. They had signed an open letter urging university administrators to refrain from calling the police on students engaged in peaceful protests over the conflict in Gaza. Ministry officials publicly mused that the professors could be disciplined under the civil service code or even criminal law, and that their research funding should be cut.
In India, often celebrated as the world’s largest democracy, the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has moved to exert control over universities in states with opposition-led governments. The central government made major changes to the University Grants Commission that has allowed it to appoint partisans to senior institutional roles.
Meanwhile, the government has restricted academic discourse by clamping down on criticism of its policies. In one instance, a professor of sociology was forced to resign after an investigation was opened into one of his PhD students. The student had included in his dissertation proposal a quote by MIT linguist Noam Chomsky that criticized Prime Minister Modi.
These trends are worrisome. Universities and colleges are critical drivers of social and economic development, but they are also foundational pillars of free societies. They are places where ideas and knowledge are developed, challenged and debated to inform public discourse and informed democratic decision-making.
