Academic Freedom, Institutional Autonomy in Higher Education Institutions in Uganda: Policy, Legal and Ethical Tensions

The higher education landscape has greatly metamorphosed in the recent past and higher education institutions (HEIs) are feeling the pressures coming from multiple corners. Because the challenges facing HEIs are multidimensional, academic freedom and institutional autonomy have become victims of political, geopolitical, policy, and ethical tensions. On one hand, institutions are working excruciatingly hard to assert their authority and on the other hand faculty are claiming their academic freedom, which has been largely misconstrued as freedom of speech and expression. Using qualitative research methods, particularly literature review and empirical documents, the paper argues that HEIs are facing a dilemma of ensuring peace, order, safety and tranquility (POST) within institutions and at the same time allow faculty to exercise and enjoy their academic freedom without caveats. To reconcile the two twin-concepts, the paper deconstructs academic freedom and delineates it from freedom of speech and expression and rather advocates for a utilitarian procedural academic freedom (UPAF). Further, the paper recommends a police-power-like institutional autonomy that plays a guardian role of facilitating faculty to exercise and increase their intellectual fecundity and at the same time retain the power to prevail whenever academics and students cross redlines.