The Value Discriminant: How Metrics Threaten Academic Freedom

This research focused on analyzing the debates and roles of academic freedom movement in Southeast Asian. The dynamics of protection related to academic freedom cannot be separated from its protection on the one hand and the threats accompanying it. The issue of academic freedom creates a threat to the academic community in producing knowledge, both within universities and those who are active as independent researchers, especially in Southeast Asian. Authoritarianism, in turn, has affected the worse situation of free expression, including academic freedom. In the current situation, the digital sphere has been targeted as well. This article will discuss the following questions: (1). What is the situation of the academic freedom movement and protection for the academic community in Southeast Asia? (2). How are efforts to maintain the movement of academic freedom in Southeast Asia, especially in Indonesia, amid efforts to subjugate the campus by the state and the practice of authoritarianism? Using an interdisciplinary approach as a part of socio-legal research, this article argued that there is a strong relationship between the threat of academic freedom movement in Southeast Asian countries and the implications in Indonesia. The academic freedom situation in Southeast Asia has been shaped by the political and economic aspects of the region as well as in their respective countries. The role of independent and progressive alliances to struggle for their rights or to understand the role of professor unions in defending academic and scientific freedom. To what extent is academic freedom considered a strong pillar for democratic societies, including providing important scientific, economic, cultural, and social progress from which we may all benefit? This roundtable is also aimed to promote possible strategies in challenging democracy declines, affecting the shrinking civic space, and how academic resilience in the digital space is a keyword that should be strengthened in its social movement since this will be more complicated due to manipulating information and anti-science politics through systematic repression.

The extraordinary probings of Limits to Scientific Inquiry (1978) and When Research May Be Stopped (Cohen 1977) suggest that science today has at best an uneasy accommodation with society. Without seeming overly dramatic, it must be likened to other transition periods in history when the course of science was challenged by religious thinking or the popular culture of the times. Although awestruck by technical achievements like recombinant DNA and in vitro fertilization, the including many scientists have grave anxieties about the consequences. Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (1949) is held up as a chilling prophecy come true, but the moral lesson of this analogy may be the evil of totalitarian control of science rather than too much scientific progress or freedom: The social order in Brave New World is maintained largely by denying access to history and to the pursuit of new knowledge. If a free press is the first guardian of democratic institutions, freedom of scientific inquiry cannot be much less so. Scientific freedom has never been without some limits, but challenges to the extent of that freedom on behalf of the public must be critically examined. Scientific freedom cannot, however, be used to justify blanket immunity from legitimate governmental and oversight, especially with federally funded programs. The trick is to balance the competing claims of autonomy and responsibility. Most people still expect more good than harm to come from research, especially in areas related to health. Although the erosion of the general public's confidence in the scientific enterprise is often overstated, the anxieties seem real and the margin of trust is narrow. The tabloid accounts of each new discovery gratuitously accompanied by mixed prophecies of universal good and disaster contribute much to the concern and misunderstanding. Sporadic reports of ethical misconduct in human research and the now-frequent breeches in the safety from toxic substances released into the environment fuel a drive for added external controls on science and its derivative technologies. Although there is obviously more to the problem than informational misadventures, much can be done to foster better communication between science and its patron public. Extreme positions for or against governmental regulations like those evoked by the DNA controversy provide little guidance for responsible policy. There is a clear need for scientists to understand and contribute constructively to the debate. If there are legitimate constraints upon science, they involve obligations to the purse, the safety, and the ethic. Ultimately, the trust will depend not so much on what is said, but upon the fidelity of scientists to the precepts of their own social institutions.

The transformation from an industrial society to a postmodern knowledge society has given rise to a new set of values that are manifesting to varying degrees in modern organisations. Besides quality orientation, these include focus on teamwork and cooperation, democratisation of the workplace, fairness and equity in labour relations, and a respect for diversity. In South Africa, many of these values have been amplified by the political transformation that the country has been undergoing since the early 1990s. Organisations are obliged to promote these values and build new cultures through strong leadership, changed strategies, and ensure buy-in and compliance by means of performance management and reward systems. Higher Education, particularly in South Africa, has been reluctant to adopt performance management systems and practices, especially insofar as it pertains to the management and appraisal of academic staff at institutions of Higher Learning. The reasons for the reluctance seem to revolve mostly around an exaggerated deference to the idea of "academic freedom" and more operationally, the difficulties associated with "measuring" excellence in academic pursuits. This article will give an overview of prevalent trends and practices in managing academic performance and will attempt to explore the possible reasons for the apparent reluctance of academic staff and academic administrators to develop or adopt systems and procedures for managing academic performance. South African Journal of Higher Education Vol.17(2) 2003: 131-138

Around the world, universities have become larger and more complex organizations and an important part of modern society. Academic freedom is recognized as an intrinsic feature in allowing academics and universities to carry out teaching, research, and service for the public good. Contemporary definitions of academic freedom share remarkable similarity around the globe. They often root the concept in a fundamental human rights perspective. The claim that academic freedom is a human right is buttressed by the argument that academic freedom is a necessary condition for fulfilling other fundamental human rights, such as the right to an education. The right to an education cannot be fulfilled by merely adhering to state-mandated curricula or propaganda; instead, it must involve the pursuit of truth and new knowledge and open discourse, all of which are fundamental to supporting vibrant social, political, and economic progress. Academic freedom as an intrinsic element in higher education exists as a concept or idea apart from the work arrangements of faculty members or other university appointees. For example, under principles of academic freedom, a part-time, adjunct instructor should be afforded academic freedom in their teaching. Functionally, however, academic freedom is, at least to an extent, dependent on employment and financial security. As documented in incidents globally, faculty members can face intimidation, arrest, or violence. Absent meaningful protections that are legally enforceable, academic freedom is largely dependent upon the goodwill or tolerance of university or political leaders when it comes to the exercise of academic freedom. Tenure or other comparable employment protections, such as ones grounded in collective bargaining agreements or civil service protections, have served to provide job stability and economic security to faculty members and protect academic freedom. Academic freedom cannot merely exist as a right that belongs to universities; it must also be an individual right with meaningful protections for faculty so they can do work that advances the public good.

There is a growing incapacity to understand the major institutional principle that made the research university into such a revolutionary success, firstly in Prussia and in Germany, later in the United States: academic freedom. Far from being a simple formula to be carried out without afterthought, academic freedom is a value, a practical instrument and a legal principle that has to be understood in relation to creativity. In this article, academic freedom and its importance for creativity in research (and teaching) is analyzed from three fundamental vantage points, firstly in terms of what academic freedom is, secondly how it works in practice and thirdly by looking at why academic freedom is so crucial to creativity. It concludes by reflecting on why it is that while the research universities that have worked under the principles of academic freedom have been extremely successful, those who today develop research policies and even university leaders are striving to dismantle the one precondition that makes all the difference, namely academic freedom.

Working Together to Address Challenges to the Teaching of Evolution

Политическое лидерство и политическая власть

This chapter discusses the challenges of safeguarding academic freedom during leadership transitions and organizational change in universities. Examples from a large public university illustrate current challenges and provide perspective for proactive measures to protect academic freedom. While the context and details are unique to the institution featured in the chapter, the lessons gleaned from each vignette offer valuable insight to faculty and university leaders who are motivated to better understand and uphold the principles of academic freedom and, more broadly, protected speech with higher education. To support academic leaders in achieving these goals, a conceptual framework for shared leadership through shared governance to support academic freedom is presented. The chapter concludes with recommendations for leveraging shared leadership to foster a university culture that supports of academic freedom.

Academic freedom, a cornerstone of democratic societies and scientific progress, is facing an alarming global decline. Once a safeguard for scholarly independence, it has steadily eroded since its peak in the early 2000s, leaving researchers increasingly vulnerable to political interference, ideological control, and funding pressures. This deterioration coincides with a broader trend of democratic backsliding and the rise of authoritarian governance, where regimes employ censorship, legal manipulation, and institutional restructuring to consolidate power. These developments echo historical patterns of suppression and come with profound consequences for academic freedom, and in extension of this, the public availability of rigorous research. Following the publication of the Digital Journalism commentary “Public Knowledge and Expertise Under Authoritarian Siege: A Defense of Academic Freedom from Digital Journalism Studies” (Westlund et al. 2025), we have called for defending academic freedom. Importantly, we feature an extensive list of signatories—scholars and institutions worldwide—who have united in defence of academic freedom in general and digital journalism studies more specifically.

Academic Freedom as a Profession and Vocation is an attempt to give an updated reading of Weber’s category of the vocation of science through the lens of academic freedom. This is the first such attempt; until now, the interplay between the two has not been explored in the literature. The paper begins by posing a question: how should we understand the role of academic freedom and to what extent should it be respected in scientific practice and science policy-making? We can analyse academic freedom on two different levels: (a) the methodological level relating to the principles of constructing scientific knowledge (perspectivism, conceptual constructivism, problematization); and (b) the practical level, including the postulate of academic freedom understood as a founding assumption of modern science. The dual perspective on academic freedom can also be seen in the Weberian category of science as vocation. I argue that academic freedom is the normative standard for the ideal of vocation: it is a necessary condition for the project of vocation (understood as an ethical ideal), and above all, freedom is a co-evident parameter of thinking at the level of cognitive operations and human cognitive action choices (the cognitive ideal). Moreover, I attempt to explore the extent to which Weber’s concept of academic freedom can help us understand our problems with academic freedom today. It is difficult to overestimate the importance of academic freedom for the work of academics as well as the democratic ecosystem as a whole. Weber’s notion of academic freedom has important implications for the crafting of institutional support for responsible science in the twenty-first century – implications that have yet to be fully grasped, much less implemented.

This study aims to analyze and interpret academic publications related to “academic freedom” indexed in the Web of Science database using bibliometric analysis methods. A bibliometric analysis was conducted to evaluate the academic publications on the topic of academic freedom in the field of education and educational sciences, which are indexed in the WoS database. Additionally, scientific field mapping techniques were employed. A total of 579 studies on academic freedom were identified within the field of education sciences. The various maps were analyzed in terms of specific usage types, authors, works, years of publication, and authors. The research findings indicate that Philip Altbach is the most frequently cited author. The most frequently cited research is that of African Higher Education: The Challenges for the 21st Century," The most effective source is the Higher Education Journal. The most frequently cited institution is Boston College. The United States of America is the country with the highest number of citations. To contribute to the field, it is recommended to increase the research on "academic freedom" indexed in the WoS database. Increasing the number of bibliometric analysis studies in different fields will contribute to the literature.

Protests and Dangerous IdeasU.S. College Campuses in the 1960s Jason S. Lantzer (bio) Radicals in the Heartland: The 1960s Student Protest Movement at the University of Illinois By Michael V. Metz (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2019. Pp. ix, 269. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. Clothbound, $110.00; paperbound, $26.95.) Dangerous Ideas on Campus: Sex, Conspiracy, and Academic Freedom in the Age of JFK By Matthew C. Ehrlich (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2021. Pp. vii, 216. Illustrations, notes, index. Clothbound, $110.00; paperbound, $24.95.) Matthew C. Ehrlich's Dangerous Ideas on Campus: Sex, Conspiracy, and Academic Freedom in the Age of JFK presents an account of free speech debates at the University of Illinois in the early 1960s. Ehrlich considers two faculty-inspired cases that defined the Urbana campus for the tumultuous decade and beyond. The first is that of Leo Koch, whose contract to teach was terminated after he wrote a letter to the editor advocating a relaxing of societal norms towards sexual relations, including how they played out on the campus. The second case occurred in the wake of Koch's firing, and involved Classics professor Revilo Oliver, an increasingly radicalized right-wing figure at Illinois, who advanced not just anti-communism and antisemitism, but also conspiracy theories surrounding the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Ehrlich's account of how the university handled these two ideologically different cases reveals how they were ultimately related, beyond taking place on the same campus. Despite their opposite ideological positions, both Koch and Oliver pushed and prodded the existing hierarchy, challenging the university's leadership, headed by President David Henry. Dangerous Ideas on Campus is driven forward narratively by Ehrlich's prose as well as the campus guide he provides the reader in the person of University of Illinois undergraduate Roger Ebert. The eventually famous movie critic and Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper columnist first burst onto the newsroom scene covering some of the events Ehrlich describes. As a result, readers who might otherwise be unfamiliar with various aspects of law, campus life, politics, or just Illinois outside of Chicago, are given a familiar voice to help them navigate what at times is a disturbing and complex story. The chief strengths of Ehrlich's account are the questions he poses for readers to consider. What is the responsibility of the academic community to professors? What is the difference between free speech and academic freedom? These are important questions that Americans and the nation's universities still wrestle with. Ehrlich also highlights the irony that Koch, the liberal, was fired over exercising opinions about sexual relations between college students and the univerity's stance in loco parentis that eventually became the norm nationally, noting that the blowback over the university's decision to terminate him likely saved Oliver, the conservative, from a similar fate. Facing disgruntled faculty, parents, students, state politicians, and an official inquiry by the American Association of University Professors, the University of Illinois had no stomach for taking on Oliver's stances on a variety of issues. Perhaps one of the more interesting things Ehrlich touches on in his tightly written book, though he does not explore the issue in [End Page 80] depth, is how the status of these two men mattered. Koch was a contract instructor, what we might deem contingent faculty today. Oliver, on the other hand, was a tenured faculty member. If, as Ehrlich notes, tenured faculty are a check on campus administrations, then it is worth pondering the current state of higher education and how that effects modern campus discussions of both free speech and academic freedom. John F. Kennedy, pictured on the cover of Ehrlich's book at a 1960 campaign stop on the campus, is important for our memory and understanding of the 1960s. His election and presidential term, cut short by his murder, provide a convenient demarcation between the decade as Ehrlich describes it and the one that Michael Metz guides us through. Like all historical demarcation lines it is somewhat arbitrary, imperfect, and yet accurate. American life did change in the wake of Kennedy's assassination. Metz's narrative picks up where Ehrlich's ends. Radicals in the...

Engraved on a wall of the Korean War Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., are the words “Freedom Is Not Free,” alluding to the human and financial costs of defending the liberties at the core of American democracy. The academic freedom central to the modern American university likewise required brave defenders and institutional commitment. In The New Southern University, Charles J. Holden describes how administrators and faculty at the University of North Carolina (unc) sought to use their expertise to effect social, economic, and political change in the region and in the process established principles of academic freedom integral to the mission of the academy. Holden, a professor of history at St. Mary's College of Maryland, sees the 1920s and 1930s as pivotal decades in unc's transformation into a major research university. Because “labor and race issues were the two key issues unc researchers and leaders identified as problems most in need of the university's expertise to solve,” the institution inevitably came into conflict with the state's textile and political bosses, who accused the university of harboring socialists and communists (p. 65). In response, Harry W. Chase, the president of unc from 1919–1930, “pushed away any threat of radicalism by linking unc's expertise and academic freedom to North Carolina's modernization and progress” (p. 54). University leaders were especially cautious on matters of racial integration and labor unionization.

Over 10 years ago, a National Research Council committee led by Jim Pellegrino and Robert Glaser generated the fundamental text on educational assessment titled, Knowing What Students Know: The Science and Design of Educational Assessment (NRC, 2001). In this document, the authors emphasize that assessment is a process of reasoning from evidence, ‘‘a process by which educators use students’ responses to specially created or naturally occurring stimuli to draw inferences about the students’ knowledge and skills’’ (National Research Council 2001, p. 20). Knowing What Students Know (NRC, 2001; KWSK) was fundamental to advancing the conversation on assessment in science and other disciplines for several reasons. First, KWSK provided a set of guiding principles for the development and evaluation of educational assessments. The assessment triangle, introduced as an assessment model, was particularly important as it brought recognition to the importance of using cognitive models to drive the design of the assessment and define the empirical evidence needed to support the interpretations derived from observed performance. Second, KWSK called for a ‘‘balanced assessment system’’ of classroom and large-scale assessments that are: comprehensive—using multiple sources of evidence about students’ learning; coherent—a shared learning model coordinating curriculum, instruction, and assessment; and continuous—longitudinal assessment of learning progress over time. This assessment system posed a model to follow in any educational system. Third, KWSK confirmed the idea that assessment should be designed with a specific purpose in mind and cannot serve multiple purposes. Fourth, KWSK emphasized the necessity for assessments to be sensitive to cultural and linguistic difference characteristics of the tested audience. Fifth, KWSK presented new advances in educational measurement, psychometrics, and technology. In all of these ways, KWSK set a high bar for quality assessments. At the

Article 15(1)(b) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights protects the right of everyone to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its applications (REBSPA). While the interpretation of this provision has not really been a focus of attention in the past, this is changing. A danger lies in construing this provision as entitling states to comprehensively regulate the field of science, at the expense of scientific and academic freedom. Scientific or academic freedom, rather than state regulation, guarantees creativity and innovation in the field of science for the benefit of society at large. This article raises four caveats to guide all those tasked with interpreting Article 15(1)(b) – specifically, the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, right now preparing a General Comment on Article 15(1)(b). Firstly, it is crucial to have conceptual clarity of, and understand the differences between, the REBSPA, freedom of science, academic freedom, freedom of expression, and the right to education. Secondly, science, by its very nature, is not susceptible to being managed. An ‘adequate’ framework for science should limit state intervention and empower the scientific fraternity. Thirdly, regulation has lately often entailed the adoption of a corporatist approach to science in universities and research institutions. This damages science. Fourthly and finally, UNESCO's recent Recommendation on Science and Scientific Researchers of 2017 constitutes only an imperfect blueprint to guide interpretation of the REBSPA. It fails to address various threats (impact agenda science, peer review, ethical regulation, entrepreneurialisation, accountability excess, absence of rights of participation in governance, and so on) to scientific and academic freedom. Relying throughout on the notion that a science system must be ‘adequate for science’, the article concludes with a set of 22 recommendations on how the REBSPA should be construed so as to duly respect scientific and academic freedom. The current science regime needs to be fundamentally rethought in the light of such freedom. Otherwise – and many experts concur – we shall soon witness the fatal collapse and disintegration of modern science. Freedom as a pillar of science, and of the REBSPA, is in danger of being lost.