Erasing critical scholarship: How attacks on academic freedom undermine democracy

Building on a number of case studies, this essay examines the role of university management for ensuring academic freedom in the European context. The emerging pattern points to academic freedom being granted to and withheld from scholars at the discretion of university managers, with attacks on academic freedom targeting mainly critical scholarship: academics who challenge, criticize and debate power differentials and inequality practices are increasingly being silenced, deprived of their livelihoods and intellectually erased from public discourse. Far from being an established professional norm, a civil right, or a legal protection upon which academic research is secured, academic freedom becomes a rhetoric adopted by university managers to punish actual and discourage future challenges to management’s power. As such, it is being used as a repressive tactic that directly undermines democratic processes. While attacks on academic freedom are deliberate acts of purifying the university of critical scholarship, these attacks are preceded by less visible acts of omission revolving around exclusion, marginalization, and exploitation of minoritized groups in academia. Importantly, acts of omission target the same critical scholarship as deliberate attacks on academic freedom. Reinforcing each other, they serve as mechanisms to maintain and reproduce power differentials within academia. The resulting environment favors scholars willing to self-censor, while erasing scholars engaging critically with power, a filter effect negatively affecting quality of research and education.