As higher education in the United States and in other nations goes global, college leaders argue, academic freedom must not be left behind.
That point was emphasized more than once at a conference held here last week organized by Scholars at Risk, an advocacy group based in New York; the University of Amsterdam; and other organizations.
The two-day meeting, which brought together about 200 professors and administrators from around the world, examined the political threats that academics and institutions face in authoritarian nations. And it asked what their counterparts in open societies can, and should, do for them.
With more universities in the West establishing international campuses and programs, the responsibility to assist persecuted professors and intellectuals has grown, participants said.
“We can’t have one set of standards at home and another for our partners and programs abroad,” said Robert Quinn, executive director of Scholars at Risk.
Craig Calhoun, director of the London School of Economics and Political Science, criticized an “oblivious globalization” of higher education. “We aren’t being attentive enough to all of the people who can’t join in our kind of intellectual life,” he said.
“We should always be asking whether we have done enough” to protect academic values, said Mr. Calhoun, mentioning places like China and the Persian Gulf emirates, where the London School and other prestigious universities have programs. He said these kinds of programs can’t “exist in a bubble.”
Universities often enjoy the benefits and stature of international partnerships but do not insist upon the same academic autonomy abroad that they expect at home, he said. “Empathy for and solidarity with persecuted academics is not enough. Most important is that there be an ethic of shared responsibility.”
Mr. Calhoun’s concerns echo those made recently by other academics in the wake of an incident involving Wellesley College and a partner university in China. After the Chinese institution was accused of firing an economics professor for his political views last year, some Wellesley faculty members said the college had a responsibility to support him.
Code of Ethics
To help clarify such situations, Mr. Quinn proposed a code of ethics that would underpin the wide range of international partnerships, from full-fledged satellite campuses to student-exchange programs. At the heart of this code, he said, should be the core values of the modern university, including social responsibility, full academic freedom, university autonomy, and the opportunity for unrestricted research.
Such a code, he said, would not be legally binding, but would be publicly available and subject to monitoring. It would apply only to the partnership itself.
Some universities do include a clause or statement about protecting academic freedom in agreements they sign with foreign governments and institutions. But the degree to which that language is followed or enforced is unclear, as is its wording, which is often undisclosed.
Part of the challenge of safeguarding academic freedom globally is the confusing political and intellectual environment in countries with authoritarian governments or in those experiencing unrest and violence.
“The state of academic freedom worldwide is in flux,” said Mr. Quinn.
In a handful of countries, such as Tunisia, there have been significant strides forward. Since the Jasmine Revolution, in 2011, which ousted the longtime dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, the nation has enshrined the autonomy of higher education in the Constitution, and universities have adopted more democratic procedures.
New Kinds of Threats
But the progress has been tempered by new kinds of threats. “Free elections brought forces into power that want to replace political authoritarianism with religious authoritarianism,” said Habib Kazdaghli, dean of the Faculty of Letters, Arts, and Humanities at the University of Manouba, referring to the country’s Islamist parties. Secular scholars, including Mr. Kazdaghli himself, have faced harassment and intimidation for challenging religious orthodoxy, he said.
Even Myanmar, a country with a history of political repression, has experienced nominal improvements, although some reforms there appear to be only superficial.
In the wake of political liberalization in Myanmar since 2012, previously banned scholars have returned, including Myint Oo, a physician and public-health educator who was forced to flee in 2009 as a result of his human-rights advocacy under the junta. Through the Scholar Rescue Fund, a program run by the Institute of International Education, Dr. Oo found a safe haven at Tufts University in 2010.
He has returned home, but Dr. Oo, who attended the conference, said he was still watched carefully by the authorities and experienced harassment when his opinion strayed too far from the government line.
In other places, academic rights are being openly violated with impunity—and with bloodshed. In Egypt, for example, the military coup that ousted the elected president and Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammed Morsi last year has led to a purge of Islamist-minded scholars and administrators at Egypt’s universities.
The situation is arguably the grimmest in Syria, where the civil war and lawlessness have forced academics and their families to flee for their lives.
“Applications for placement abroad have shot up precipitously in the last two years,” said Sarah Willcox, of the Scholar Rescue Fund, which has been able to place 45 Syrian scholars elsewhere, mostly in universities in the United States and Western Europe as well as in Turkey, Mexico, Jordan, and Chile.
In addition to helping threatened intellectuals find temporary refuge, Scholars at Risk is pursuing new ways to support them. It is putting into place a global monitoring program, run by volunteers, as well as bolstering its efforts to help incarcerated academics who cannot leave their countries.