Academic Freedom

Academic Freedom: Trump’s University Blackmail Results

February 6, 2026 Diego Ramos, Scheer Post. Educate! Academic Freedom, Higher Education, Trump Administration, Zionism

Universities in 2025 proved that the federal government can indeed blackmail academic institutions by withholding federal funds and forcing schools not only to give money to the government but also fundamentally alter the way their campuses operate. In a statement, The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University said, “Columbia’s acquiescence to the agreement is nonetheless likely to provide cover for the Trump administration’s ongoing, lawless assault on higher education.” In company with Columbia are Northwestern University, Cornell University, Brown University, the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) and the University of Virginia (UVA).

There’s An Intensifying Kind Of Threat To Academic Freedom

January 17, 2026 Austin Sarat, Scheer Post. Educate! Academic Freedom, Higher Education, Informants, Students

Texas A&M University told philosophy professor Martin Peterson in early January 2026 that he could not teach some of Greek philosopher Plato’s writings that touch on “race and gender ideology.” The university’s local chapter of the American Association of University Professors, an organization of professors and academics in the U.S., quickly denounced this requirement. Peterson, in response to his university’s direction, replaced the Plato readings with material on free speech and academic freedom. Silencing a professor from teaching a certain subject fits within what experts have long recognized as encroaching on academic freedom.

A Public Call For Accountability At The Harvard Education Publishing Group

August 26, 2025 Open Letter, Mondoweiss. Resist! Academic Freedom, Higher Education, Israel, Palestine, Palestine Solidarity, Retaliation

We, the undersigned scholars, educators, and education practitioners write to express our alarm at the Harvard Education Publishing Group’s (HEPG) cancellation of a special issue on Palestine and Education in the Harvard Educational Review (HER). Such censorship is an attempt to silence the academic examination of the genocide, starvation and dehumanisation of Palestinian people by the state of Israel and its allies. As reported by The Guardian, contributing authors of the special issue were informed late into the process that the publisher intended to subject all articles to a legal review by Harvard University’s Office of General Counsel. In response to this extraordinary move, the twenty-one contributing authors submitted a joint letter to both HEPG and HER, protesting this process as a contractual breach that violated their academic freedom.

Chris Hedges Report: The End Of Academic Freedom

July 24, 2025 Chris Hedges, Scheer Post. Resistance Report Academic Freedom, Chris Hedges, Higher Education, Muhlenberg College, New McCarthyism, Palestine, State Repression

The gutting of public funding for higher education in the United States has led to the takeover of universities by private donors, many of whom are Zionist entities and billionaires. As a result, universities have become, as guest Dr. Maura Finkelstein calls them, “banks and real estate development companies that offer classes.” As demonstrated by Finkelstein’s story, this new paradigm of higher education has pushed aside democratic values and academic freedom. In January 2024, as a result of a McCarthyist-style crackdown on pro-Palestinian faculty, Finkelstein was fired from her position as a tenured associate professor and chair of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Muhlenberg College.

New York’s Report On Antisemitism Is An Attack On The Palestine Movement

October 14, 2024 Tatiana Cozzarelli and James Dennis Hoff, Left Voice. Educate! Academic Freedom, Anti-Zionism, Antisemitism, Campus Movement, CUNY, Genocide, Islamophobia, Israel, New York City (NYC), Palestine, Palestine solidarity movement

The Fall 2024 semester has been marked by an onslaught of repressive measures against the Palestine movement and free speech on campuses. Professors have been fired, students have been suspended, and universities have banned pro-Palestinian groups, including Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Jewish Voices for Peace (JVP). At the City University of New York (CUNY), some community members are still facing felony charges after 28 people were initially charged with felonies for their participation in the City College encampment for Palestine last semester. Nearly 11 months ago, in the wake of October 7, and in the middle of a national attempt to equate the movement for Palestine with antisemitism, New York governor Kathy Hochul commissioned an investigation on antisemitism at CUNY.

Hundreds Of Students Occupy Columbia University In Solidarity With Gaza

April 18, 2024 People's Dispatch. Resist! Academic Freedom, Columbia University, Higher Education, Israel, New York City (NYC), NYPD, Occupation, Palestine, State Repression, Student Activism

At 4 am on April 17, hundreds of Columbia University students began to set up a “Gaza solidarity encampment” on the main lawn of campus, pledging to stay until the University divests from Israel. This historic occupation was coordinated by various student organizations such as the coalition Columbia University Apartheid Divest, Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine, and Columbia Jewish Voice for Peace. The action was inspired by the historic 1968 occupation of Columbia’s Hamilton Hall by students in protest against racism and the Vietnam War.

Academic Freedom Under Fire As Gaza Burns

December 5, 2023 Mick Hall, Consortium News. Educate! Academic Freedom, Censorship, Israel, Palestine, Repression

Academic freedom and freedom of expression on university campuses across the Anglosphere have continued to come under attack in the past week with Israeli lobbyists conflating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism. As Israel resumed its bombing campaign, now focusing on southern Gaza, the push to hold back the growing tide of disgust is intensifying, as the official Palestinian death toll in the strip nears 16,000. On Tuesday, the presidents of Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are being hauled before a U.S. congressional committee to face accusations that protests on their campuses were anti-Semitic in nature.

State Bills Would Eliminate Long-Term Job Security In Higher Education

April 29, 2023 Olivia Wood, Left Voice. Educate! Academic Freedom, Higher Education, North Carolina, Texas, Worker Rights

Last Tuesday, Republican legislators in the North Carolina state house of representatives proposed H.B. 715, the so-called “Higher Ed Modernization and Affordability Act.” Its actual purpose is to destabilize academic jobs and exert political surveillance over North Carolina’s sixteen public universities and 58 public community colleges. Last Thursday, the Texas state senate passed a similar bill, S.B. 18. The North Carolina bill has several provisions, but the prospective elimination of tenure is getting the most attention. Under this provision, the tenure system would be eliminated for all new hires from July 2024 onward, and all future faculty would be employed at-will or on fixed-term contracts between one and four years long.

Chancellor Resigns Over Her Firing Of Prof Over Gaza

August 8, 2015 Kevin Gosztola, www.shadowproof.com Resist! Academic Freedom, Gaza, Israel, Palestinians

By Kevin Gosztola for Shadowproof Press - The chancellor of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), who was involved in firing Professor Steven Salaita over tweets he sent about Israel’s 2014 assault on Gaza, has announced her resignation yesterday. The announcement comes as a federal judge refused to dismiss Salaita’s lawsuit against the university for violating his free speech. An attorney representing Salaita, Anand Swaminathan of Loevy & Loevy, stated, “The university’s administration took a number of positions that showed contempt for its constitutional obligations, and raise serious doubts about the university’s commitment to academic freedom and its willingness to honor contractual commitments to its scholars. We are extremely pleased that the court has rejected the university’s dubious arguments.”

Bring Back Free College – & Cancel Debt For The “In-Betweeners”

May 9, 2015 Mary Green Swig, Steven L. Swig, and Richard Eskow, www.ourfuture.org Organize! Academic Freedom, Public Education

Momentum is building for an exciting “new” idea, one which is in fact far older than many people realize: free higher education in the United States. The cost of educating oneself to participate fully in society is one which our revolutionary forebears understood should be borne by everyone. In John Adams’ day, that meant an elementary and high school education. Today, for many people, higher education is equally essential. The cost of that education is not an individual or charitable obligation. It is a social one. Since we first wrote about free higher education as a human right back more than a year ago, the idea has gained considerable momentum. President Obama has proposed a program of tuition-free junior college education. Other groups have begun advocating for free four-year public education.

Assassination Plot Records Won’t Be Released

February 12, 2015 Dylan Baddour, www.chron.com Resist! Academic Freedom, Freedom of Expression, Houston, Occupy, police brutality

Details of a plot to kill Occupy Houston leaders won't be released after a federal court upheld the FBI's claim that the documents are legally exempted from the Freedom of Information Act. The FBI argued information was withheld, including 12 of 17 relevant pages, to protect the identity of confidential sources who were "members of organized violent groups," according to Courthouse News Service. A heavily-redacted FBI document first revealed a Houston plot "to gather intelligence against the leaders of the protest groups and obtain photographs, then kill the leadership via suppressed sniper rifles."

Time Running Out For PepsiCo And Snack Food 20

October 4, 2014 Gemma Tillack, www.ran.org Resist! Academic Freedom, Deforestation, Environment, Freedom Industries

One thing is clear, time is running out for PepsiCo and the Snack Food 20 companies to cut Conflict Palm Oil from their products. It's time for companies to put new commitments into action. Deforestation rates in Indonesia, where a majority of palm oil is grown, are the highest ever and continue to rise. We simply can not allow palm oil companies to bulldoze the ecosystems that our societies survival depends upon. The Snack Food 20 companies must stop buying palm oil from the companies responsible for the carbon bombs released into the atmosphere when rainforests and peatlands are cleared to make way for new plantations.

Zionist Group Publishes List Of ‘Anti-Israel’ US Professors

September 16, 2014 Ali Abunimah, www.electronicintifada.net Educate! Academic Freedom, Freedom of Speech, Israel, Palestine

The Amcha Initiative, the Zionist organization that has repeatedly intimidated, spied on and harassed students and faculty, appears to be escalating its campaign by publishing what amounts to a target list of “anti-Israel” professors. Amcha says that the list is made up of “218 professors identifying themselves as Middle East scholars, who recently called for the academic boycott of Israel in a petition.” It links to an item at Jadaliyya titled “Over 100 Middle East Studies Scholars and Librarians Call for the Boycott of Israeli Academic Institutions.” “Students who wish to become better educated on the Middle East without subjecting themselves to anti-Israel bias, or possibly even antisemitic rhetoric, may want to check which faculty members from their university are signatories before registering,” Amcha says.

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