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Academic freedom is far from a politically neutral concept. Defined as freedom from government interference, academic freedom has long been a hallmark of the left-wing intellectual tradition. As Isaac Kamola, associate professor of political science at Trinity College in Hartford, CT, explains, «academic freedom is based on the argument that higher education can only serve the common good if it is free from outside influence». This is particularly true in countries with a history of military intervention and state-led persecution of scholars, such as my home country of Brazil, or the United States, where the Red Scare and War on Terrorism have been used as excuses to stifle seemingly socialist ideas. More recently, Florida has been at the forefront of normalizing restrictions of academic freedom.

Fear of a new social movement fuels attacks on academic freedom in Florida

Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis has taken steps to reshape school and university curricula to prevent the teaching of Critical Race Theory and Queer Theory in order to bolster his presidential candidacy. He has replaced the governing board of New College, Florida’s public liberal arts college, with right-wing activists, who have stated their explicit intention to turn New College into a bastion of conservative ideology. In recent months, New College faculty members have been denied tenure or had their contracts non-renewed because of what they teach. 

I spoke to Isaac Kamola, co-author of Free Speech and Koch Money: Manufacturing a campus cultural war, which examines the impact of donors on academic freedom in US colleges. We discussed the broader conservative political strategy behind DeSantis’ higher education legislation. US libertarians, Kamola argues, fear that certain ideas have spread beyond academia and are fueling civic unrest. These wealthy political activists with a fundamentally minoritarian political project want to root out these threatening ideas: «It is no surprise that these attacks on academic freedom are taking place in the aftermath of the massive democratic uprising following the murder of George Floyd. These protests represented an existential threat for libertarians, including DeSantis and the mega-donors who fund him. They are deeply concerned about the fact that ideas, which had primarily circulated in academic circles — among critical race scholars, queer theorists, feminists — launched into the mainstream. The ideas in the streets fundamentally discredited the radical beliefs these plutocrats use to justify and naturalize the extreme inequality from which they benefit.»

European conservatives have hijacked the defense of academic freedom 

Meanwhile, European conservatives feel comfortable dictating whose academic freedom is worth protecting. Some months ago, the University of Heidelberg invited only male speakers to a conference on democracy. Gender scholars such as Paula-Irene Villa of the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München noted on Twitter and in a blog post published by the German Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung¹ how the defense of academic freedom has become a conservative shield against the inclusion of women and other minorities. Villa’s commentary reflects a growing fear that anti-reformers in higher education face little resistance when they claim a monopoly on the definition of academic freedom. Their ease in defending themselves against the perceived excesses of a «woke tenured left» has, for example, led to the creation of a network to defend academic freedom in Germany. The latter is dedicated to protecting faculties from alleged pressure to conform by «external activists […] scandalizing the invitation of unpopular guests» and thereby potentially discrediting the international reputation of German higher education. This interpretation of academic freedom has also dominated discussions of academic freedom in Switzerland, with the Neue Zürcher Zeitung citing the German example of «left-wing radicalism» in university classrooms as a bleak forecast for the future of Swiss higher education (see here, here, here, here and here). 

Kamola stresses the importance of remaining vigilant against conservative anti-wokeness rhetoric, especially when it is disguised as a defense of academic freedom. He argues that academic freedom is simply «the commitment to protect academics and the academic process from outside interference.» Therefore, academic freedom does not guarantee a democratic, inclusive and equitable academy. Academic freedom does, however, guarantee the ability to point out «existing inequalities and hierarchies, without the threat of retaliation.» While conservative complaints against wokeness are thus often based on false premises, Kamola argues, the complaint itself contains a political agenda: «The boogeyman of ‘woke professors’ is an excuse to push back on political efforts to make universities more democratic, inclusive and just.»