22 Jun 15 | Academic Freedom, Counter Terrorism, Magazine, United Kingdom, Volume 44.02 Summer 2015
Students at a protest in Manchester. Photo: Alamy/ M Itani
The realisation of academic freedom typically depends on controversy: it voices dissent. Linked to free speech, it is marked primarily by critique, speaking against – even offending against – prevailing or accepted norms. If it is to be heard, to make a substantial difference, such speech cannot be entirely divorced from rules or law. Yet legitimate rule – law – is itself established through talk, discussion and debate. Academic freedom seeks a new linguistic bond by engaging with or even producing a free assembly of mutually linked speakers. To curb such freedom, you delegitimise certain speakers or forms of speech; and the easiest way to do this is to isolate a speaker from an audience and to isolate members of an audience from each other. Silence the speaker; divide and rule the audience. When that seems extreme, work surreptitiously: attack not what is said but its potentially upsetting or offensive “tone”. Such inhibitions on speech increasingly chill conditions on campus.
Academic freedom is typically enshrined in university statutes, a typical formulation being 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” – as the statutes of the University of Warwick, where I work, have it. Yet academic freedom is now being fundamentally weakened and qualified by legislation, with which universities must comply.
British Prime Minister David Cameron, speaking in Munich on 5 February 2011, said: “We must stop these groups [terrorists] from reaching people in publicly funded institutions like universities.” This was followed by a UK government report on tackling extremism, released ahead of the recent election, which said: “Universities must take seriously their responsibility to deny extremist speakers a platform.” It was suggested that “Prevent co-ordinators” could “give universities access to the information they need to make informed decisions” about who they allowed to speak on campuses. Ahead of May’s UK election university events had already been changed or cancelled. And immediately after the election, the government signalled its intention to focus further on the extremism agenda. In endorsing this approach, university vice-chancellors have acquiesced in a too-intimate identification of the interests of the search for better argument with whatever is stated as government policy. The expectation is that academics will in turn give up the autonomy required to criticise that policy or those who now manage it on government’s behalf in our institutions.
Governments worldwide increasingly assert the legal power to curtail the free speech and freedom of assembly that is axiomatic to the existence of academic freedom. This endangers democracy itself, what John Stuart Mill called “governance by discussion”. The economist Amartya Sen, for example, has recently resigned from his position as chancellor of Nalanda University in India because of what he saw as “political interference in academic matters” whereby “academic governance in India remains … deeply vulnerable to the opinions of the ruling government”. (See our report from India in our academic freedom special issue.) This is notable because it is one extremely rare instance of a university leader taking a stand against government interference in the autonomous governance of universities, autonomy that is crucial to the exercise of speaking freely without jeopardy.
Academic freedom, and the possibilities it offers for democratic assembly in society at large, now operates under the sign of terror. This has empowered governments to proscribe not just terrorist acts but also talk about terror; and governments have identified universities as a primary location for such talk. Clearly closing down a university would be a step too far; but just as effective is to inhibit its operation as the free assembly of dissenting voices. We have recently wit- nessed a tendency to quarantine individuals whose voices don’t comply with governance/ government norms. Psychology professor Ian Parker was suspended by Manchester Metropolitan University and isolated from his students in 2012, charged with “serious misconduct” for sending an email that questioned management. In 2014, I myself was suspended by the University of Warwick, barred from having any contact with colleagues and students, barred from campus, prevented from attending and speaking at a conference on E P Thompson, and more. Why? I was accused of undermining a colleague and asking critical questions of my superiors, the answers to which threatened their supposedly unquestionable authority. None of these charges were later upheld at a university tribunal.
More insidious is the recourse to “courtesy” as a means of preventing some speech from enjoying legitimacy and an audience. Several UK institutions have recently issued “tone of voice” guidelines governing publications. The University of Manchester, for example, says that “tone of voice is the way we express our brand personality in writing”; Plymouth University argues that “by putting the message in the hands of the communicator, it establishes a democracy of words, and opens up new creative possibilities”. These statements should be read in conjunction with the advice given by employment lawyer David Browne, of SGH Martineau (a UK law firm with many university clients). In a blogpost written in July 2014, he argued that high-performing academics with “outspoken opinions”, might damage their university’s brand and in it made comparisons between having strong opinions and the behaviour of footballer Luis Suárez in biting another player during the 2014 World Cup. The blog was later updated to add that its critique only applied to opinions that “fall outside the lawful exercise of academic freedom or freedom of speech more widely”, according to the THES (formerly the Times Higher Education Supplement). Conformity to the brand is now also conformity to a specific tone of voice; and the tone in question is one of supine compliance with ideological norms.
This is increasingly how controversial opinion is managed. If one speaks in a tone that stands out from the brand – if one is independent of government at all – then, by definition, one is in danger of bringing the branded university into disrepute. Worse, such criticism is treated as if it were akin to terrorism-by-voice.
Nothing is more important now than the reassertion of academic freedom as a celebration of diversity of tone, and the attendant possibility of giving offence; otherwise, we become bland magnolia wallpaper blending in with whatever the vested interests in our institutions and our governments call truth.
This vested interest – especially that of the privileged or those in power – now parades as victim, hurt by criticism, which it calls of- fensive disloyalty. What is at issue, however, is not courtesy; rather what is required of us is courtship. As in feudal times, we are legitimised through the patronage of the obsequium that is owed to the overlords in traditional societies.
Academic freedom must reassert itself in the face of this. The real test is not whether we can all agree that some acts, like terrorism, are “barbaric” in their violence; rather, it is whether we can entertain and be hospitable to the voice of the foreigner, of she who thinks – and speaks – differently, and who, in that difference, offers the possibility of making a new audience, new knowledge and, indeed, a new and democratic society, governed by free discussion.
© Thomas Docherty
Thomas Docherty is professor of English and of comparative literature at the University of Warwick in the UK.
This article is part of a special issue of Index on Censorship magazine on academic freedom, featuring contributions from the US, Ukraine, Belarus, Mexico, India, Turkey and Ireland. Subscribe to read the full report, or buy a single issue. Every purchase helps fund Index on Censorship’s work around the world. For reproduction rights, please contact Index on Censorship directly, via [email protected]
09 Jun 15 | Academic Freedom, Magazine, Volume 44.02 Summer 2015
Illinois Urbana-Champaign University in the United States, where one academic had his job offer withdrawn over his tweets on the Israel-Gaza conflict. Credit: Alamy/ Jeff Greenberg
This article is taken from the summer issue of Index on Censorship magazine (volume 44, issue 2). To read the full report on academic freedom, subscribe or download the app on a free trial
The power of Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible continues to resonate in 2015. London’s Old Vic revived the play by Miller, a long-time supporter of Index, this year, and it has never seemed more chilling. As characters threw accusation and counter accusation at each other across the stage, the words felt just as relevant to the zip of the social-media age as to Salem in 1692.
In Ukraine, as our report in this issue details, attestation committees have now been set up to examine accusations by students and others that university academics might have “separatist attitudes” or have been using “provocative” speech. If found guilty lecturers can lose their jobs. This forms part of the brooding atmosphere currently hanging over Ukraine’s academic life, where former colleagues are banned from speaking to each other, and a system of national “patriotic” education has been introduced.
But Ukraine is not alone. In Belarus, a national committee acts casts a judgemental eye on any university that shows independence of spirit, or might choose to teach subjects in a way that the authoritarian government might find unsettling. And in Turkey, the nationwide YÖK committee stands disapprovingly on the sidelines, interfering in the minutiae of academic dress sense, giving orders about the wearing of headscarves and beards, as well as recently issuing a rule that academics should not give their opinions to the media, except on scientific subjects.
Around Turkey academic freedom is coming under attack from all sides, one lecturer who put a question about a Kurdish manifesto written in the 1970s on an exam paper, received multiple death threats and was accused of being “a terrorist”.
One hundred years ago the Declaration of Principles on Academic Freedom and Academic Tenure was published in the USA, a century on, university faculty are still finding that institutions disapprove of them having public opinions on political issues. While some US universities restrict freedom of expression on campuses to painted-square zones, presumably where students can cope with hearing opinions they disagree with, faculty members are expected not to be outspoken on social media, or find themselves, as in the case of Steven Salaita (detailed in the magazine), having their assistant professorship job offer withdrawn.
Universities should be places where discoveries are made. Academia is an opportunity for students and teachers to challenge themselves; their preconceptions and values, and, perhaps, head off in a new direction. Studying can be the start of something big; a new idea that might end in an enormously valuable invention such as the Large Hadron Collider; or it might just be a big moment for the individual, who discovers a fascination for medieval history, or 8th-century literature.
Education opens up all sorts of avenues of discovery, but if we start closing some of those roads off, arguing they are too dangerous, or challenging, or hold possible stress, then we are heading off in a terrifying direction. For this issue of the magazine, we found academics, authors and activists around the world were worried enough to support the following statement:
“We the undersigned believe that academic freedom is under threat across the world from Turkey to China to the USA. In Mexico academics face death threats, in Turkey they are being threatened for teaching areas of research that the government doesn’t agree with. We feel strongly that the freedom to study, research and debate issues from different perspectives is vital to growing the world’s knowledge and to our better understanding. Throughout history, the world’s universities have been places where people push the boundaries of knowledge, find out more, and make new discoveries. Without the freedom to study, research and teach, the world would be a poorer place. Not only would fewer discoveries be made, but we will lose understanding of our history, and our modern world. Academic freedom needs to be defended from government, commercial and religious pressure.”
A full list of signatures can be seen here, with supporters including authors AC Grayling, Monica Ali, Kamila Shamsie and Julian Baggini; Jim Al-Khalili (University of Surrey), Sarah Churchwell (University of East Anglia), Thomas Docherty (University of Warwick), Michael Foley (Dublin Institute of Technology), Richard Sambrook (Cardiff University), Alan M. Dershowitz (Harvard Law School), Donald Downs (University of Wisconsin-Madison), Professor Glenn Reynolds (University of Tennessee), Adam Habib (vice chancellor, University of the Witwatersrand), Max Price (vice chancellor, University of Cape Town), Jean-Paul Marthoz (Université Catholique de Louvain), Esra Arsan (Istanbul Bilgi University) and Rossana Reguillo (ITESO University, Mexico).
The range of signatures from countries around the globe show just how far and wide the fear is that academic freedom is, in 2015, coming under enormous pressure.
© Rachael Jolley
This article comes from the summer issue of Index on Censorship magazine (volume 44, issue 2), which contains features from across the world, plus fiction and poetry by writers in exile. Subscribe or download the app (free trial) to read the magazine in full. For reproduction rights, please contact Index on Censorship directly, via [email protected]
Students and academics at 7500 universities around the globe have access to the magazine’s archive containing 43 years of articles via Sage.
Subscribers can read Arthur Miller in Index on Censorship magazine here.
09 Jun 15 | Academic Freedom, Magazine, Volume 44.02 Summer 2015
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”What is the state of academic freedom in 2015? Index on Censorship magazine’s summer 2015 issue takes a global vantage point to explore all the current threats – governmental, economic and social – faced by students, teachers and academics. “][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2”][vc_column_text]
In the UK and US, offence and extremism are being used to shut down debates, prompting the adoption of “no-platforming” and “trigger-warnings”. In Turkey, an exam question relating to the Kurdish movement led to death threats for one historian. In Ireland, there are concerns over the restraints of corporate-sponsored research. In Mexico, students are being abducted and protests quashed.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”66714″ img_size=”full”][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_column_text]
Plus we have reports on Ukraine, China and Belarus, on how education is expected to toe an official line. Also in this issue: Sir Harold Evans, AC Grayling, Tom Holland and Xinran present their free-speech heroes. Ken Saro-Wiwa Junior introduces a previously unpublished letter from his activist father, 20 years after he was executed by the Nigerian state, and Raymond Joseph reports on the dangers faced by Africa’s environmental journalists today. Comedian Samm Farai Monro, aka Comrade Fatso, looks at the rise of Zimbabwean satire; Matthew Parris interviews former UK attorney general Dominic Grieve; Italian journalist Cristina Marconi speaks to Marina Litvinienko, wife of the murdered KGB agent Alexander; and Konstanty Gebert looks at why the Polish Catholic church is upset by Winnie the Pooh and his non-specific gender.
Our culture section presents exclusive new short stories by exiled writers Hamid Ismailov (Uzbekistan) and Ak Welaspar (Turkmenistan), and poetry by Musa Okwonga and Angolan journalist Rafael Marques de Morais. Plus there’s artwork from Martin Rowson, Bangladeshi cartoonist Tanmoy and Eva Bee, and a cover by Ben Jennings.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”SPECIAL REPORT: FIRED, THREATENED AND IMPRISONED” css=”.vc_custom_1483456198790{margin-right: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 1px !important;padding-top: 15px !important;padding-bottom: 15px !important;border-bottom-color: #455560 !important;border-bottom-style: solid !important;}”][vc_column_text]
Is academic freedom being eroded?
Silence on campus – Kaya Genç explores why a Turkish historian received death threats for writing an exam question
Universities under fire in Ukraine’s war – Tatyana Malyarenko unveils how Ukrainian scholars have to prove their patriotism in front of a special committee
Industrious academics – Michael Foley looks at how the commercial pressures on Ireland’s universities and students is narrowing research
Stifling freedom – Mark Frary’s take on 1oo years of attacks on US academic freedom
Ideas under review – Lawyer and journalist Suhrith Parthasarathy looks at how the Indian government interfering with universities’ autonomy. Also Meena Vari asks if India’s most creative artistic minds are being stifled
Girls standing up for education – Three young women from Pakistan, Uganda and Nigeria on why they are fighting for equality in classrooms
Open-door policy – Professor Thomas Docherty examines the threats to free speech in UK universities. Plus the student’s view, via the editor of Cambridge’s The Tab new site
Mexican stand-off – After the abduction of 43 students, Guadalajara-based journalist Duncan Tucker looks at the aftermath and the wider picture
Return of the red guards – Jemimah Steinfeld reports on the risks faced by students and teachers who criticise the government in China
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”IN FOCUS” css=”.vc_custom_1481731813613{margin-right: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 1px !important;padding-top: 15px !important;padding-bottom: 15px !important;border-bottom-color: #455560 !important;border-bottom-style: solid !important;}”][vc_column_text]
Pride and principles – Matthew Parris in conversation with the former UK attorney general Dominic Grieve
A letter from Ken Saro-Wiwa – A moving tribute from the son of one of the Ogoni nine and a previously unpublished letter from his father who was killed in Nigeria 20 years ago
Hunt and trap – Raymond Joseph reports on the dangers currently being faced by Africa’s environmental journalists
Litvinienko’s legacy – Italian journalist Cristina Marconi speaks to Marina Litvinienko, wife of the murdered KGB agent Alexander
God complex – Konstanty Gebert looks at why the Polish Catholic church is so worried about Winnie the Pooh’s gender
Zuma calls media ‘unpatriotic’ – Professor Anton Harber speaks to Natasha Joseph about the increasing political pressure on South African journalism
Dangers of blogging in Bangladesh – Vicky Baker on the recent murders of Bangladeshi bloggers by fundamentalists, plus a cartoon by Dhaka Tribune’s Tanmoy
Comedy of terrors – Samm Farai Monro, aka Comrade Fatso, on the power of Zimbabwe’s comedians to take on longstanding political taboos
Print under pressure – Miriam Mannak reports on the difficulties facing the media in Botswana, as the president tightens his grip on power
On forgotten free speech heroes – Sir Harold Evans, AC Grayling, Tom Holland and Xinran each pick an individual who has made a telling contribution to free speech today
Head to head – Lawyer Emily Grannis debates with Michael Halpern on whether academic’s emails should be in the public domain
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”CULTURE” css=”.vc_custom_1481731777861{margin-right: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 1px !important;padding-top: 15px !important;padding-bottom: 15px !important;border-bottom-color: #455560 !important;border-bottom-style: solid !important;}”][vc_column_text]
The pain of exile – Exclusive new fiction from Uzbek writer Hamid Ismailov, who has not only had all his books banned back in his homeland, but every mention of his name
Eye of the storm – A poem by Musa Okwonga on the importance of allowing offensive views to be heard and debated on university campuses
The butterfly effect – The lesser known poetry of Index award-winner Rafael Marques De Morais
Listening to a beating heart – A new short story from Ak Welsapar, an author forced to flee his native Turkmenistan after being declared an enemy of the people
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”COLUMNS” css=”.vc_custom_1481732124093{margin-right: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 1px !important;padding-top: 15px !important;padding-bottom: 15px !important;border-bottom-color: #455560 !important;border-bottom-style: solid !important;}”][vc_column_text]
Global view – Index’s CEO Jodie Ginsberg on the difficulties of measuring silenced voices
Index around the world – An update on Index’s latest work
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”END NOTE” css=”.vc_custom_1481880278935{margin-right: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 1px !important;padding-top: 15px !important;padding-bottom: 15px !important;border-bottom-color: #455560 !important;border-bottom-style: solid !important;}”][vc_column_text]
Battle of the bots – Vicky Baker reports on the fake social media accounts trying to silence online protest
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”SUBSCRIBE” css=”.vc_custom_1481736449684{margin-right: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 1px !important;padding-bottom: 15px !important;border-bottom-color: #455560 !important;border-bottom-style: solid !important;}”][vc_column_text]Index on Censorship magazine was started in 1972 and remains the only global magazine dedicated to free expression. Past contributors include Samuel Beckett, Gabriel García Marquéz, Nadine Gordimer, Arthur Miller, Salman Rushdie, Margaret Atwood, and many more.[/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”76572″ img_size=”full”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]In print or online. Order a print edition here or take out a digital subscription via Exact Editions.
Copies are also available at the BFI, the Serpentine Gallery, MagCulture, (London), News from Nowhere (Liverpool), Home (Manchester), Calton Books (Glasgow) and on Amazon. Each magazine sale helps Index on Censorship continue its fight for free expression worldwide.
SUBSCRIBE NOW[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row]
01 May 15 | Campaigns, mobile, Statements
On World Press Freedom Day, 116 days after the attack at the office of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo that left 11 dead and 12 wounded, we, the undersigned, reaffirm our commitment to defending the right to freedom of expression, even when that right is being used to express views that we and others may find difficult, or even offensive.
The Charlie Hebdo attack – a horrific reminder of the violence many journalists around the world face daily in the course of their work – provoked a series of worrying reactions across the globe.
In January, the office of the German daily Hamburger Morgenpost was firebombed following the paper’s publishing of several Charlie Hebdo images. In Turkey, journalists reported receiving death threats following their re-publishing of images taken from Charlie Hebdo. In February, a gunman apparently inspired by the attack in Paris, opened fire at a free expression event in Copenhagen; his target was a controversial Swedish cartoonist who had depicted the prophet Muhammad in his drawings.
A Turkish court blocked web pages that had carried images of Charlie Hebdo’s front cover; Russia’s communications watchdog warned six media outlets that publishing religious-themed cartoons “could be viewed as a violation of the laws on mass media and extremism”; Egypt’s president Abdel Fatah al-Sisi empowered the prime minister to ban any foreign publication deemed offensive to religion; the editor of the Kenyan newspaper The Star was summoned by the government’s media council, asked to explain his “unprofessional conduct” in publishing images of Charlie Hebdo, and his newspaper had to issue a public apology; Senegal banned Charlie Hebdo and other publications that re-printed its images; in India, Mumbai police used laws covering threats to public order and offensive content to block access to websites carrying Charlie Hebdo images. This list is far from exhaustive.
Perhaps the most long-reaching threats to freedom of expression have come from governments ostensibly motivated by security concerns. Following the attack on Charlie Hebdo, 11 interior ministers from European Union countries, including France, Britain and Germany, issued a statement in which they called on internet service providers to identify and remove online content “that aims to incite hatred and terror”. In the UK, despite the already gross intrusion of the British intelligence services into private data, Prime Minister David Cameron suggested that the country should go a step further and ban internet services that did not give the government the ability to monitor all encrypted chats and calls.
This kind of governmental response is chilling because a particularly insidious threat to our right to free expression is self-censorship. In order to fully exercise the right to freedom of expression, individuals must be able to communicate without fear of intrusion by the state. Under international law, the right to freedom of expression also protects speech that some may find shocking, offensive or disturbing. Importantly, the right to freedom of expression means that those who feel offended also have the right to challenge others through free debate and open discussion, or through peaceful protest.
On World Press Freedom Day, we, the undersigned, call on all governments to:
• Uphold their international obligations to protect the rights of freedom of expression and information for all, especially journalists, writers, artists and human rights defenders to publish, write and speak freely;
• Promote a safe and enabling environment for those who exercise their right to freedom of expression, especially for journalists, artists and human rights defenders to perform their work without interference;
• Combat impunity for threats and violations aimed at journalists and others threatened for exercising their right to freedom of expression and ensure impartial, speedy, thorough, independent and effective investigations that bring masterminds behind attacks on journalists to justice, and ensure victims and their families have speedy access to appropriate remedies;
• Repeal legislation which restricts the right to legitimate freedom of expression, especially such as vague and overbroad national security, sedition, blasphemy and criminal defamation laws and other legislation used to imprison, harass and silence journalists and others exercising free expression;
• Promote voluntary self-regulation mechanisms, completely independent of governments, for print media;
• Ensure that the respect of human rights is at the heart of communication surveillance policy. Laws and legal standards governing communication surveillance must therefore be updated, strengthened and brought under legislative and judicial control. Any interference can only be justified if it is clearly defined by law, pursues a legitimate aim and is strictly necessary to the aim pursued.
PEN International
Adil Soz – International Foundation for Protection of Freedom of Speech
Africa Freedom of Information Centre
Albanian Media Institute
Article19
Association of European Journalists
Bahrain Center for Human Rights
Belarusian PEN
Brazilian Association for Investigative Journalism
Cambodian Center for Human Rights
Canadian Journalists for Free Expression
Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility
Centre for Independent Journalism – Malaysia
Danish PEN
Derechos Digitales
Egyptian Organization for Human Rights
English PEN
Ethical Journalism Initiative
Finnish PEN
Foro de Periodismo Argentino
Fundamedios – Andean Foundation for Media Observation and Study
Globe International Center
Guardian News Media Limited
Icelandic PEN
Index on Censorship
Institute for the Studies on Free Flow of Information
International Federation of Journalists
International Press Institute
International Publishers Association
Malawi PEN
Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance
Media Institute of Southern Africa
Media Rights Agenda
Media Watch
Mexico PEN
Norwegian PEN
Observatorio Latinoamericano para la Libertad de Expresión – OLA
Pacific Islands News Association
PEN Afrikaans
PEN American Center
PEN Catalan
PEN Lithuania
PEN Quebec
Russian PEN
San Miguel Allende PEN
PEN South Africa
Southeast Asian Press Alliance
Swedish PEN
Turkish PEN
Wales PEN Cymru
West African Journalists Association
World Press Freedom Committee
World Press Freedom Day 2015
• Media freedom in Europe needs action more than words
• Dunja Mijatović: The good fight must continue
• Mass surveillance: Journalists confront the moment of hesitation
• The women challenging Bosnia’s divided media
• World Press Freedom Day: Call to protect freedom of expression
