SCAS Talks Spotlight - Episode 11

Academic Freedom - part 1/2025

Published: 18 December 2025

Summary
This SCAS Talks Spotlight on the event "A Week on Academic Freedom" delves into urgent threats to academic freedom worldwide. In this first part, experts highlight challenges from political interference and funding cuts impacting university autonomy. Discussions cover the US, where the Trump administration's actions and free speech debates loom large. In Europe, Hungary's government restructuring of universities and a broader erosion of academic freedom across the continent are examined. Speakers emphasize the vital role of universities as democratic pillars and the need for the research community to proactively defend academic freedom. They stress the importance of speaking up, standing against threats, and engaging the public about its value and legal foundations. The episode also touches on legal protections and defining academic freedom's core values.

Keywords
Academic freedom, university autonomy, free speech, self-censorship, democracy

Transcript of the Episode

Nicholas Dirks 00:07
This is the moment when we need to re-articulate the principles, generally disseminate the legal foundations, and begin to talk to the public much more proactively about what academic freedom really means and what its value is. And of course, universities are being attacked by the president and the vice president of the United States, and there are a lot of people around the world in very high political positions that are quite clear that universities need to be taken either over or taken back, or controlled in ways that could lead to real conflict over the idea of academic freedom in the future.

Natalie von der Lehr 00:50
Welcome to SCAS Talks and the first part of two in our series SCAS Talks Spotlight focusing on the recent event "A Week on Academic Freedom". "A week on academic freedom" was initiated by the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study and organized in collaboration with the research programs Democracy and Higher Education and Higher Education and Research as Objects of Study, and was held for the second time in October 2025. Two years ago at the same event, the stage was set by discussing the importance and underlying concepts of academic freedom. This time, the focus was a global outlook on the current state of academic freedom, emphasizing a sense of urgency and issuing a call to action. How can and should the research community respond when academic freedom is under attack? You will hear more about this in this episode. My name is Natalie von der Lehr, and I have talked to some of the speakers during the week to gain insights on specific examples, as well as the broader perspective.

Natalie von der Lehr 01:58
I start off with a very basic question to Hans Adolfsson, president of Stockholm University and chair of the Swedish Rector conference, SUHF. Why is academic freedom important?

Hans Adolfsson 02:10
Well, why are universities important? We are one of the, I would say, fundamental pillars of democracy in society. So without universities and without academic freedom, then we would also have one, I would say, part of society which would not be defending democracy and democratic principles. Academic Freedom is a topic which is highly relevant to discuss these days, and not only the individual academic freedom, I think we also need to discuss the institutional academic freedom and the autonomy of universities, which is really under threat, I would say, looking at what happens in well, in some countries in Europe, Hungary, for instance, and then definitely what happens in the US right now.

Natalie von der Lehr 02:54
What can universities and the principles of universities do to protect academic freedom?

Hans Adolfsson 03:01
Well, we can, of course, stand up where there's a threat towards or against academic freedom, and that's sort of our duty to do that as well. I think we we definitely need to do that.

Natalie von der Lehr 03:11
Earlier this year, Stockholm and Gothenburg University were asked by the government to design a test for immigrants who apply for Swedish citizenship, and both universities declined to do so. The reaction from the government was clear. Being state authorities, the universities better do as they are told.

Natalie von der Lehr 03:30
What is the situation right now?

Hans Adolfsson 03:32
Well, right now we have been very clear towards both the UHR, the Swedish agency for higher education, who has received this this task, and also to the government that it's absolutely impossible to deliver a high quality examination or a high quality test given the specific timeline. And furthermore, is also not a task that should be given to a university, even though we have, I would say we have the right skills to make tests like that, and we are already making similar tests, but not the citizenship test, because they are by no means connected to the core activities of the universities - education and Research.

Natalie von der Lehr 04:21
At the moment, it is not possible to talk about academic freedom without talking about the US. Since the Trump administration's takeover in January 2025 there has been an astonishing, rapid deconstruction of US higher education, from drastic funding cuts to federal agencies such as the NIH and NASA to a long list of forbidden words. Already early on, elite universities like Harvard and MIT were attacked by threats to withdraw federal funding unless they would comply with government directives. In October this year, nine top universities were presented with "A Compact for.Academic Excellence in Higher Education", also called the compact, which promised financial benefits in exchange for increased government oversight. I talked to Fredrik Logevall, Professor of History and International Affairs at Harvard University, about the events during the past eight to nine months.

Fredrik Logevall 05:18
It feels in some ways like an eternity. But as you point out, it's only been about eight months. For Harvard, certainly, but more broadly, for American universities and colleges, too, liberal arts colleges, I think it's been a challenging time. needless to say. In Harvard's case, I think there was an early decision that you may remember, early announcement, in which the Trump administration said it would be freezing about $3 billion in funds after the university had refused demands from the administration that the Harvard administration thought exceeded what it considered to be acceptable. In other words, there were too many encroachments on academic freedom for Harvard to accept.

Natalie von der Lehr 06:00
You at Harvard can stand up relatively strong and refuse to do things that the government tells you. But what about smaller schools and state colleges, for example? How are they affected by all of these things happening now?

Fredrik Logevall 06:14
I think schools like Harvard, Stanford, Yale and so on. They, too, get a lot of funding from the government, especially for research. And so I don't want to, I don't want to understate the degree to which they're being affected, and would be dramatically affected themselves, should these cuts that in some cases, it's still in the courts whether the cuts will be carried out. If they are, I think even these major research institutions will suffer, even the private ones that have large endowments, and Harvard's is the largest of all. It's the wealthiest, the oldest, and I guess, the most prestigious American University. But I think, as you were suggesting with your question, this is a much more serious situation for a whole host of other institutions. Let's remember, we have about 3000 institutions of higher learning in the United States. It's a huge country, huge number of schools, many of them are already suffering because of enrollment contractions, the number of American teenagers who are 17 or 18 and going to university is going down. And so there's already concern, I think, for many of these schools, about inadequate applicants. And these are tuition dependent institutions, because the allocations by individual states have been steadily declining, so there's already this problem. And if you then cut either the number of international students who either choose to go elsewhere because they say to themselves, I want to go to the US, but why would I go if there's going to be a problem with my visa, or if I'm not going to feel welcome, I'll go somewhere else. If these other let's call them less endowed, less wealthy institutions, if they're suffering from this enrollment contraction, if they're going to be suffering in terms of the number of international students they can either attract or who are allowed to come and research funding for their faculty is also threatened - you're staring into the to the abyss if you're the leader of one of these institutions. So I think the situation for them, the prospects for them, the peril that they potentially face is great.

Natalie von der Lehr 08:45
And I guess not only research will be affected, but also the teaching, and in means of maybe what you can teach and what classes will be available and so on.

Fredrik Logevall 08:55
Well, I think you're absolutely right. If we think about it like this, what is academic freedom? Well in teaching, I think it's simple. It's the ability to teach all relevant subjects. Period. It's probably as good a definition as any. If that is restricted, then, of course, that has hugely important implications, chilling implications, for what I and others can do in our classroom. At the moment, I guess I'm - maybe I'm too optimistic or not sufficiently pessimistic - but at the moment, I don't see that as being a particular threat, that that part of academic freedom is being challenged. But there's another way that I think academic freedom in this regard, is already being challenged. And here, here, I think we could be a little bit more self critical. Meaning, I think there is pretty good evidence for years now that students have engaged in self censorship. That is to say, students have been unwilling to really speak their minds in class because they fear either how fellow students will respond or their instructors will respond. And that's maybe even happened in my class, in my own class, heaven forbid, it's hard for an instructor to see that. And I certainly encourage in my own courses, full debate, and we have often, I think robust debate. But I think there's pretty good evidence that this goes on. Students themselves say, well, when the subject gets too sensitive, I usually keep my mouth shut. That's a problem, and that suggests that there is an illiberalism that exists in universities, including from the left. So I would not want to deny the argument by some conservatives and others, not just conservatives, that we have this problem, and that I think has a bearing on the question of academic freedom. And so in no way do I want to suggest that this is a bagatelle or something, something minor. But in terms of what I feel at the moment that I can teach in the classroom, I have not felt any kinds of restrictions. I have not decided, oh, I don't want to have that topic, or I don't want to assign that reading because of the effect that it might have. Maybe that day will come, but it hasn't come yet. I don't anticipate when I teach next semester that I will have any kind of reservations in that regard.

Natalie von der Lehr 11:28
I just want to share a reflection with you. We are now in the month of October, and for science journalists, this is a very, always a very exciting month, because in the beginning of the month, the Nobel Prize laureates are announced. And this year, I think was at University of Berkeley, had a grand slam with, I think, five Nobel Prizes. And amidst all this chaos with the ongoing attacks on the universities, this was a strange feeling. I mean, the Nobel Prize is like the highest recognition of your scientific achievement. And the US prides itself with having so many laureates, and at the same time you have this ongoing crazy situation.

Fredrik Logevall 12:14
Well, it's, it's, it's such a good observation. I thought about this myself, and you know, it speaks to this extraordinary partnership between the US government and the universities that is a post war phenomenon. It really takes off, it really is cemented in the 1950s and the results, as you're just saying, speak for themselves. I mean, the number of Nobel laureates, not all of them native born Americans. In fact, quite often they come from elsewhere. But I think it's a mark of the extraordinary success of American universities and research institutions that they, even if they come from elsewhere, they've ended up at one of these institutions. And so in a way that makes it, for me, more all the more puzzling why the administration in Washington would potentially jettison or, you know, would risk this, because it's just been an extraordinary, extraordinary success.

Natalie von der Lehr 13:19
Nicholas Dirks, President and CEO of the New York Academy of Sciences and former chancellor at University of California, Berkeley, is no stranger to threats from Donald Trump, and has been a target himself. As soon as Trump was elected the first time around in 2016, one of the Breitbart voices, Milo Yiannopoulos, was invited as a speaker on the university campus by the Berkeley College Republicans. Despite being an extreme voice, even by the standards of the people who had invited him, and riots at universities where Yiannopoulos had spoken earlier, Nicholas Dirks did not mitigate the planned appearance.

Nicholas Dirks 13:58
There were reasons why faculty and students were concerned about physical safety, but what struck me as new was that the concern was about speech. It was actually about the harm that would be produced by the speech of Milo Yiannopoulos. Now it is true that he said things that were offensive. He said things that were offensive about feminism. He also said things that were quite offensive about trans people, but I think there was a wider concern among both faculty and students expressed quite vividly when I had delegations come to see me in my office as chancellor, begging me not to allow him to come, and in some cases weeping because of the anticipated trauma that would be produced by his speech, leave alone the possibility of physical violence. Now I was preparing for physical violence, although, as it turned out in the story, I didn't prepare enough, but I'd been working with the campus police. I'd been working with the city police. I had a plan that was put in place that I was told would be adequate. But I wasn't prepared for the concern about harm from speech at Berkeley, where, you know, the whole idea of free speech was so iconic. And so he came, the event was shut down by protesters. Milo had to be taken off campus, escorted by the police to go back to his hotel. More than about $200,000 of damage was done to the Student Union, and more damage was done to the City of Berkeley, where the protesters went on a kind of parade after shutting down the speech. The next morning I woke up, there was a tweet from then very newly president Donald Trump saying, in caps, full caps: no free speech at Berkeley, question mark, then no federal funds. Exclamation point. A threat that at the time we didn't take nearly seriously enough. But more to the point, in terms of the local culture around the campus, a couple of days later, there were four op-eds that appeared in the Daily Californian, which is the student newspaper, all of them saying that, in one way or another, it was a good thing that these protesters came to campus and shut down the event. This, to me, was incredibly surprising. It also indicated to me because, of course, it was at a time when there began to be controversies around speakers on campus, indicating that there was a real sense now that free speech was no longer a value held by many people who identified as progressive as on the left, and indeed that there was a growing belief on the part at least of some that free speech was a liberal conceit. It was not something that should be defended because of the extraordinary harm it could do. At the time, I said, you know, beware of what you wish for, because you could, you can compromise. You can abrogate the commitment that this and other campuses have to free speech. But what goes around is going to come back around, and this will, under the conditions that might develop in the future, be something used against people of your political persuasion in order to suppress your voices. And so the whole point about free speech is that you tolerate speech you don't like, because you make the claim that your speech needs to be tolerated too. We've seen in the period since that that kind of sentiment, and indeed, the controversies around both speakers and around the meaning of free speech have only become more intense. And indeed now under the second administration of Donald Trump, that even though Trump signed an executive order saying, you know, free speech is here. In fact, there's a clamp down on free speech on campuses in the form both of discipline of students, discipline of faculty who have spoken out in ways the administration doesn't like. Efforts to regulate what is taught and how it is taught in classrooms, and increasing scrutiny both of the extramural and in classroom speech of many of the primary citizens of our universities in the United States. Well, now going back to the tweet from Trump, no federal funds. We didn't really take that seriously, as I said before, but we should have, because that is what they're doing. So they're using millions, millions, in the case of the University of California, billions of dollars in canceled research support to exert leverage, you could say, to be ransom for other kinds of demands that put the leadership of many universities that are research intensive in very, very difficult predicaments. Nobody wants to see billions of dollars of research grants canceled. So what has been encouraging at the present moment is that there's been a lot of talk about academic freedom and the importance of academic freedom. And there have been, in the case of this compact, which was initially extended to nine institutions, we've seen that eight of them have effectively said, although we're happy to talk to you, academic freedom is sacrosanct, this compact would compromise academic freedom on our campuses, and therefore, as it is written, we cannot accept it. But the compact has now been extended to other universities. There was a headline just earlier today suggesting that some colleges and universities are seeking to be included in the compact. The story isn't over yet, and the worry is that there will be a kind of fracturing, a division among universities, between those who will simply say, academic freedom is is a sacred commitment, and those who will say, well, you know, maybe we can discuss this.

Natalie von der Lehr 19:40
What can Europe learn from this whole situation that you're going through in the US right now?

Nicholas Dirks 19:46
I think every country should take this moment, even if the situation is fine, and we know, of course, that it can be fine, and then change very quickly. That was the case in Hungary, and it's the case in the United States. That, I think this is the moment when we need to re-articulate the principles, generally disseminate the legal foundations, and begin to talk to the public much more proactively about what academic freedom really means and what its value is. And of course, the universities are being attacked by the president and the vice president the United States, and there are a lot of people around the world in very high political positions that are quite clear that universities need to be taken either over or taken back or controlled in ways that could lead to real conflict over the idea of academic freedom in the future.

Natalie von der Lehr 20:37
The interviews with Fredrik Logevall and Nicholas Dirks reflect the situation around October 20th this year. If you want to keep up with the current state, the website "The Chronicle of Higher Education" provides daily newsletters with more information. But let's turn to Europe then. First up: Hungary. In Hungary, the concept of academic freedom has faced some serious headwinds. Under Viktor Orban's government, a striking series of moves have dramatically curtailed the independence of universities and research. From the forced departure of the internationally renowned Central European University to the restructuring of the historic Hungarian Academy of Sciences, the state has been asserting control over what can be taught, researched and even discussed. This has sparked concerns about the future of independent thought and intellectual inquiry in the country. Let's dive into what these changes mean for academic freedom. Andrew Ryder tells us more.

Andrew Ryder 21:44
My name is Andrew Ryder. I'm a professor at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, and I'm director of the Institute for Political and international studies there.

Natalie von der Lehr 21:57
So what is the situation like now in Hungary regarding academic freedom?

Andrew Ryder 22:03
Well, a large number, the great majority of universities, have been made into foundations. I think this is deeply worrying. I'm pleased to say the European Union shares my concerns, because they have ruled that these foundation universities cannot use Erasmus funding and cannot access Horizon research money, and this is because they also believe there are serious issues around autonomy with foundation universities. Because when a university becomes a foundation in Hungary, it is governed by a board of trustees, and these people were close to the government under Viktor Orban.

Natalie von der Lehr 22:55
You took up the issue of marketization of universities. university education, also making the comparison to authoritarian regimes. Can you go a bit deeper into that?

Andrew Ryder 23:08
Yes. I mean, I think globally, there's been an increasing trend of marketization in universities where business principles are applied to academia, and I don't think this is conducive to good knowledge production environments. What I think we're seeing, in some cases, are authoritarian governments using the language of marketization for change, but their agenda is increasingly political control of what academics do. So I see the two becoming interconnected, at times.

Natalie von der Lehr 23:55
Jumping a little bit forward now you also told us about an upcoming book that you're writing for a potential new government, what they should think about in terms of academic freedom, universities and higher education. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?

Andrew Ryder 24:11
Yes, basically, the book is a conversation between a wide range of people with different political views, ranging from mainstream conservative to liberal leftist. And it doesn't just involve academics, but civil society, politicians, school teachers, people from all walks of life. It's a sort of deliberative process. We're getting people in a room to see if we can find some common ground, if the principles that we agree on that we want to protect, how we can take them forward. I think one thing that unites this wide range of people is that they're concerned about the direction the country is going under the present government.

Natalie von der Lehr 25:04
Several surveys have been conducted to analyze the state of academic freedom in Europe. The emerging picture may not be the best, with academic freedom being threatened in a number of European countries in various ways. Marie Elken, Associate Professor at the Department of Education at the University of Oslo, has looked further into the subject.

Mari Elken 25:25
Based on the studies we have done at the University of Oslo, partially for the European Parliament, and partially for other purposes, we do see that there is a gradual erosion of academic freedom, and there are multiple threats to academic freedom coming in different from different sources. There are also some common issues or threats across Europe, as well as some quite country specific developments. But aside Hungary, which is the only case where we see structural infringements, in most other European countries there is more of a gradual erosion that we can see.

Natalie von der Lehr 25:54
So what kind of threats are there? Can you give some examples?

Mari Elken 25:58
So we distinguish between a number of different threats. Some come from the political interference of different political actors in academia. We can also see threats coming from within academia, either from the executive leadership or from other academics who might engage in trying to silence other academics. We also see attacks coming from the civil society, or through social media and other measures, or from the private sector as well, through controlling research funding in various ways. And then we also see an increasing entanglement between issues of security policies and academic freedom.

Natalie von der Lehr 26:31
So what can be done about this?

Mari Elken 26:33
Well, I think that we have to act on multiple levels. So I think what we can see now is that on European levels, there are multiple initiatives to try to support and safeguard academic freedom. The EU is working on a number of initiatives. There is also work being done in the Bologna process in the HEA with fundamental values. Council of Europe is working on a democratic commission project, and also on academic freedom. So there are quite a few initiatives going on on European level. But I think it's also important to address this on a national level and also, perhaps on an institutional level. We need to gain more knowledge. Academic Staff has to be more knowledgeable on this issue. And perhaps also institutional leadership needs to take ownership and provide courses, provide sort of, maybe an ombudsman, ways of, sort of creating an infrastructure, also to protect academic freedom within the institutions.

Natalie von der Lehr 27:18
One of the things that came up now during this session is that many academics actually don't know what academic freedom is.

Mari Elken 27:24
Yeah, it is almost a paradox. Given that it's one of the most fundamental professional freedoms that we do have in academia, there seems to be relative sort of ignorance about its importance, but also what it contains and where the limits are. So what we can see is that it is also a concept which still, in the number of ways there's multiple definitions. But we can agree on a number of core aspects, which we think also more people than academia should know about. If you are within academia, take an interest in academic freedom. Try to find out support your fellow academics who might experience infringements and speak up.

Natalie von der Lehr 27:55
Legal protection of academic freedom is no easy business. In international law, academic freedom falls under the general right to science, as first set out in article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The European Convention on Human Rights doesn't actually spell out academic freedom as a standalone right. However, the European Court of Human Rights, which interprets this convention, has consistently recognized academic freedom as a vital part of freedom of expression protected under Article 10. Essentially, it safeguards academics rights to teach, research and share their findings without undue interference, fostering open debate and critical thinking. It's considered fundamental for the advancement of knowledge and the health of a democratic society. Anna Jonson Cornell, Professor of Comparative and Constitutional Law at the Faculty of Law at Uppsala University, investigates what legal protection there is for academic freedom in the EU law. She and many other legal scholars think it is important that the court expands the protection of academic freedom to also include institutional autonomy and not only the individual aspects of academic freedom. So the obvious question is: can academic freedom be included under Article 10 as a fundamental value for the EU?

Anna Jonsson Cornell 29:23
I think there is language hinting in that direction in different official documents and legal acts from the EU on secondary law level.

Natalie von der Lehr 29:32
The previous speaker was talking about the situation in Hungary. And I mean, there we saw a quick escalation. And Hungary is sort of now the school book example of how things can go wrong. What can the European Union do to protect academic freedom, so to say, to avoid similar scenarios in other countries?

Anna Jonsson Cornell 29:54
That's also a very important question, obviously, and very difficult to answer because it is very situation specific for different countries, what the challenges are and what causes a threat, if you want to put it, use that kind of language to academic freedom. But there's so many aspects. There's funding of research, there's, you know, freedom when it comes to designing what courses we want to teach and how we want to teach our students, choosing research questions and theoretical frameworks for our studies, you know all of that. How do you protect that? I don't think there's a simple answer to it, and I most definitely do not think that law has all the answers. Being a legal scholar is very important for me to underline. I do not think that the law has all the answers. I think this is something we need to work with as individual researchers and professors and teachers at the universities and our academic leadership has to work with those questions and the ethics that goes with them on a daily basis. And maybe in the, you know, when it becomes really serious, then the law will will help, hopefully, but then it's almost always too late when law becomes involved, as a tool before a court of law.

Natalie von der Lehr 31:12
What can you as a legal scholar do?

Anna Jonsson Cornell 31:15
Yeah, maybe our contribution as legal scholars is to talk about values, because constitutions, in most cases, they embody and express values which are fundamental to our society and to our democratic political systems. And we can contribute to developing constitutions and wording in constitutions, for example, which then will guide other legislative acts and maybe restrict them if you want to take legal measures that would mean and contribute to or lead to an infringement of academic freedom. In those kind of situations, the constitution will matter, hopefully.

Natalie von der Lehr 32:01
In this first part of SCAS Talks Spotlight on "A Week on Academic Freedom", you have heard more about the current situation in the US, and also some examples from Europe, including the legal framework. I would like to thank Hans Adolfsson, Fredrik Logevall, Nicholas, Dirks, Andrew Ryder, Marie Elken and Anna Jonson Cornell for talking to me. In the next part, we will dive into the importance of academic freedom for democratic societies, and also listen to some examples from Asia. We will also hear more about what role SCAS and other Institutes for Advanced Studies can play to protect academic freedom. Don't miss that. Thanks for listening, and bye for now.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai