COME September, campuses around the world stir into action, ready for months of insight and inquiry. But the calibre of these is becoming more tenuous as academic freedom worldwide faces mounting threats. Pakistanis are sadly very familiar with the suppression of academic freedoms, but the global trend has troubling implications closer to home too.
A new working paper by Harvard University’s Pippa Norris documents the growing threats to academic freedoms, defined as the ability of scholars to be free to research, publish and teach without external interference or constraints, and be free to fund research, recruit and engage in public-facing activities without undue censorship.
Norris analyses data from the Academic Freedom Index to conclude that academic freedom has eroded in 22 countries — home to over half the world’s population — in the first quarter of the 21st century, while improving in only five (including, interestingly, Kenya and Iraq). She also points out that it is not just external factors such as funding cuts or legal pressure that are undermining academic freedom, but also a growing tendency among academics to self-censor in the face of academic homogeneity, groupthink, and the fear of being disadvantaged for having a contrarian argument.
The challenge to academic freedom is gaining attention because of the dramatic news from campuses across the US. Norris cites the American Association of University Professors, which reports 57 bills in 23 states “seeking to limit the autonomy or public colleges and universities by prohibiting or banning the content of syllabi, empowering partisan appointments on managing boards, and restricting freedom to learn, teach and conduct research”. The world is becoming accustomed to the varying forms of academic suppression in the US, from the clampdown on pro-Palestinian voices to book bans, the blocking of funding for research on topics such as climate change, and even the deportation of international students.
Academic suppression indicates democratic decline.
While depressing, the US onslaught on academic freedom is not unprecedented. As early as 1972, then US president Richard Nixon was reminding Henry Kissinger that “professors are the enemy”. The erosion of academic freedom aligns with any form of democratic backsliding and the rise of populist, right-wing politics and is evident in countries as diverse as the US, Turkiye, Poland, Egypt and Nicaragua.
The alignment between rising authoritarianism and suppressed speech and academic freedom was forecast by John Stuart Mill in the 19th century: “To refuse a hearing to an opinion, because they are sure that it is false, is to assume that their certainty is the same thing as absolute certainty. All silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility.” The misguided perception of infallibility and the belief that dissenting voices are inherently wrong are the hallmarks of authoritarians everywhere.
The suppression of academic freedom is part of a spectrum ranging from intimidation of students, travel curbs, internet bans, detentions, civilian trials in military courts, and extrajudicial killings. The lack of academic freedom spurs democratic collapse, as, in the words of the OHCHR, “without academic freedom, societies lose one of the essential elements of democratic self-governance: the capacity for self-reflection, for knowledge generation and for a constant search for improvements of people’s lives and social conditions.”
For Pakistanis who have long endured the absence of academic freedom, there may be an element of schadenfreude in watching the US administration ravage its erstwhile enviable academic institutions. But no one benefits from a race to the bottom.
Pakistan’s expenditure on R&D dropped from 0.17 per cent of GDP in 2019 to 0.16pc in 2021. Meanwhile, the race to participate in transnational education programmes (whereby students remain in Pakistan while obtaining degrees from foreign institutions) is heating up — there are over 15,000 Pakistani students engaged in 55 TNE programmes in the country.
In a 2024 Daedalus article, Michael Ignatieff warned against the trend of authoritarian and populist regimes clamping down on academic freedom, and enabling this suppression through partnerships with the academic institutions of other authoritarian states. He asks: “… what victory have authoritarian leaders won if they have muzzled their best universities, exiled their best researchers, and created institutions whose only purpose is to indoctrinate the ruling class?
In a world where borders remain open, talent flows towards freedom, not away from it.” But what happens when there’s nowhere free for the best and brightest to flee to?
The world ends up less insightful, informed and innovative — a true curse in these challenging times.
The writer is a political and integrity risk analyst.
X: @humayusuf
Published in Dawn, September 1st, 2025