Academic Freedom in 2025: Navigating Free Speech and Institutional Values
By Raphael Cohen-Almagor, Chair in Politics, Founding Director of the Middle East Study Centre (MESC), University of Hull; and Fellow at The Israel Institute for Advanced Studies, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2024-2025), and President of The Association for Israel Studies
Freedom of expression is a right granted in liberal democracies to every individual. Academic freedom is narrower in scope and application. It is limited to scholars who are engaged in research and teaching in universities and similar institutions of higher education. Academic freedom includes freedom of expression, freedom of inquiry, freedom of association, and freedom of publication. The term "academic freedom" has traditionally had two applications - to the freedom of the teacher and to that of the student.
Academic freedom is the freedom of teachers and students to pursue knowledge wherever it may lead, without undue or unreasonable interference. It involves the freedom to engage in a wide range of activities in the production and dissemination of knowledge and information, including choosing research topics; determining what to teach in the classroom; convening conferences and workshops; presenting research to colleagues, students and the wide public; publishing research findings; applying for grants, and assisting individuals, governments, businesses and NGOs with knowledge and expertise. Academic freedom is required in order to enable researchers and teachers to accomplish the aims that academia aspires to achieve: Conducting research to broaden and deepen knowledge of the world in all its facets; training the next generation of researchers; training professionals in certain fields, and teaching at an advanced level to “raise the intellectual tone of society”. In the United Kingdom, academic freedom is protected under the Education Reform Act 1988 which acknowledges the need “to ensure that academic staff have freedom within the law to question and test received wisdom, and to put forward new ideas and controversial or unpopular opinions, without placing themselves in jeopardy of losing their jobs or privileges they may have at their institutions.” This provision in the Education Reform Act 1988 was enacted in order to provide a safeguard against the possibility of arbitrary dismissal, which arose when their tenure was abolished by this legislation.
In other words, academic freedom provides scholars peace of mind and security to seek answers relentlessly. Good research requires painstaking effort, time and patience. The researchers may have hypotheses as to where the research might lead them, but they do not have certainty. Their eyes and minds remain open to pursue truth and find it. Universities that limit the pursuit of truth deprive scholars of the ability to carry their duties responsibly. By implication, such universities stifle not only its academics and students but the society at large of the ability to progress.
Universities have a responsibility to foster a culture of independence where scholars feel safe to pursue truth and knowledge. This is particularly of importance when controversial and challenging issues need to be addressed for the benefit of society.
At the same time, it should be emphasized that the function of academic freedom is not to liberate individual professors from all forms of institutional regulation but to ensure that faculty within the university are free to engage in professionally competent forms of inquiry and teaching, which are necessary for the realization of the social purposes of the university. Professionalism is accentuated. We expect certain standards to be met because of the academic setting. Academics are perceived as professional experts in the production of knowledge. Universities enable academics to reflect, scrutinise, and develop long-term processes. Academic activity is expected to be conducted in accordance with the relevant professional ethics, which place certain limitations on the activity. When scholars conduct research, they are required to undergo ethics review, which becomes rather elaborate if the research involves animals and humans. In every field of study, appropriate methods are used, in accordance with professional, ethical and legal standards.
The importance of academic freedom is most clearly acknowledged in the light of the purpose for which universities exist. The four essential freedoms of a university are: to determine on academic grounds who may teach, what may be taught, how it shall be taught, and who may be admitted to study. Universities should be the hotbed for new ideas. Academic institutions are founded to transmit and enrich our knowledge and our understanding of diverse phenomena. The mission of a university is multi-dimensional. Universities should promote inquiry and advance the sum of human knowledge. Freedom to reason and freedom for disputation are essential. Imagination, creativity and innovation are encouraged. Universities should provide general instruction to students, and they should develop experts for various branches of the public service. Scholars must be absolutely free not only to pursue their investigations but to declare the results of their researches, no matter where they may lead them or to what extent they may come into conflict with accepted opinion. To be of use to the legislator or the administrator, they must enjoy their complete confidence in the disinterestedness of their conclusions.
To fulfil their mission, universities need to distinguish between valid ideas and illogical, nonsensical, baseless ideas and bad ideas (such as racism). Thus, universities cannot protect a broad, abstract concept of marketplace of ideas. Academic independence, in the sense of independence of choice processes that are required to hold a course, does not give scholars complete autonomy to do whatever they like. Each teaching activity is carried out within a certain discipline, or within several disciplines, but never in a framework that is arbitrarily decided by the lecturer. Content needs to be relevant, and updated in accordance with the data of the day. Thus, for instance, one cannot teach Holocaust denial in a chemistry seminar. One cannot teach Holocaust denial in a course on genocide. But it is appropriate to teach Holocaust denial in a course on antisemitism, or propaganda, or false news. Scholars are free to choose the topic for their courses, but they must choose from among the research topics of their discipline and teach this topic according to the prevalent methodologies of their discipline. This includes the methods of interpreting findings that are practised in the discipline. Scholars are free to choose for themselves a method for presenting the course topics, whether routine or new, but they must pass the professional tests of a responsible, reliable, fair and ethical presentation of the course topics. If the topics, the research and teaching methods, and the interpretation of the findings are all done in accordance with existing professional standards, scholars should enjoy academic freedom to teach and lecture about their scholarship without internal or external intervention.
Raphael Cohen-Almagor received his doctorate from the University of Oxford. He is Chair in Politics, Founding Director of the Middle East Study Centre (MESC), University of Hull; Fellow at The Israel Institute for Advanced Studies, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2024-2025), and President of The Association for Israel Studies (AIS) (2023-2025). Raphael was the Yitzhak Rabin-Fulbright Visiting Professor at UCLA School of Law and Department of Communication (1999-2000); Visiting Professor at the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, Johns Hopkins University (2003-2004); Fellow at The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (twice) (2007-2008, 2022); Distinguished Visiting Professor to the Faculty of Laws, University College London (2019), and The 2023 Olof Palme Visiting Professor, Lund University, Sweden.
Raphael is the author of hundreds of publications, including The Boundaries of Liberty and Tolerance (1994), The Right to Die with Dignity (2001), Euthanasia in The Netherlands (2004), Speech, Media and Ethics (2005), The Scope of Tolerance (2006), The Democratic Catch (2007), Confronting the Internet's Dark Side (2015), Just, Reasonable Multiculturalism (2021), and The Republic, Secularism and Security: France versus the Burqa and the Niqab (2022). Presently, Raphael is completing his book Resolving the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict: A Critical Study of Peace Mediation, Facilitation and Negotiations between Israel and the PLO (forthcoming CUP).
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