October 2021

We are researchers, staff, and students at colleges and universities, writing collectively to affirm the necessity of academic freedom, in the face of the latest attempt to undermine it. We refer to the emerging doctrine of academic freedom merely as cover for securely-employed researchers to exclude, suppress, and bully junior scholars out of the profession.

Our concern is raised by recent developments at the University of Sussex. Recently, student protesters have called for accountability in the case of Prof. Kathleen Stock, complaints about whom have been routinely suppressed by University administrators for some years. Rather than acknowledge the tension between the students’ justifiable grievances, their sincerely held values, and Prof. Stock’s rights to research and publish as she sees fit, Vice-Chancellor Adam Tickell issued threats of “disciplinary action” against protestors, adding through a University Twitter account that the student protestors were “attack[ing] Prof. Kathleen Stock for exercising her academic freedoms.” [1] We maintain, on the contrary, that the students were exercising theirs.

We think that represents a poor bargain for scholars. Our collective professional interest in free research and publishing is undermined when “academic freedom” is reduced to a fig-leaf for institutional abuse. We are troubled, too, by reports that various parties at Sussex have issued vexatious legal threats to silence legitimate criticism.

We therefore assert the following ten principles.

1. We believe that everyone has the right to research and publish without interference of any kind.

2. We do not believe that assent is the goal of scholarly endeavor, and we value all modes of productive disagreement.

3. We particularly affirm and champion the rights of students, independent scholars, contingent faculty, and all insecurely-employed researchers to research and publish work that challenges the orthodoxies of those with security of employment.

4. We believe that the right to protest is a fundamental aspect of academic freedom.

5. We condemn all uses of vexatious suits, baseless legal threats, and all forms of intimidation designed to suppress scholarly exchange.

6. We call for legal and institutional protections for insecurely-employed scholars against such threats.

7. We believe that an inclusive and diverse working environment is a prerequisite of academic freedom, not a threat to it.

8. We affirm that securely employed scholars owe a duty of care to their students, which should prevent them from (for example) engaging in retaliatory conduct designed to silence them.

9. We demand adequate financial and institutional research support for all college and university workers who seek it.

10. Academic freedom is a general condition, not an individual entitlement: unless all workers are free to research and publish, that condition does not exist.


CURRENT SIGNATORIES: https://www.academicfreedomforall.com/

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[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/education-58841887 ; https://twitter.com/SussexUni/status/1446108933702098956