Why we should teach students about academic freedom

Academic freedom is essential for universities to fulfil their responsibilities to students, to their local and national communities, and to global knowledge, health and prosperity. In Australia, free speech and academic freedom are enshrined in individual university acts, policies and collective bargaining agreements.

Importantly, academic freedom extends to undergraduate and postgraduate students. It protects them as they pursue their studies, and ensures that they receive a quality education in a climate of free exchange and enquiry.

The global threat to academic freedom

But academic freedom is under pressure globally. The recently released 2026 report of the Academic Freedom Index found that 50 countries have experienced a decline in academic freedom compared with 10 years ago, while only nine countries registered improvements. In just the past year, international advocacy network Scholars at Risk documented 395 attacks on academic freedom. Threats to academic freedom are evident not only in authoritarian contexts, but also in historically stable democracies including Sweden and the US.

• Faith, freedom and fairness: a balancing act for universities
• Academics must resist the creeping degradation of academic freedom
• Spotlight guide: Dealing with division – the polarised university

Part of the solution to these alarming trends is to build students’ understanding of the value of academic freedom and other core higher education values, and to equip them with tools to defend these.

Advocacy for academic freedom

In our undergraduate class of humanities and social science students, we set out to equip students with both a theoretical, interdisciplinary understanding of academic freedom (including critical analysis of its definition and limits) and hands-on experience in advocating for threatened scholars.

In partnership with Scholars at Risk, students work in teams to develop advocacy campaigns for an imprisoned academic. This includes conducting research on the political and legal context in the country, monitoring the scholar’s situation (including reports on their health and welfare), and undertaking advocacy both on campus and in the broader public sphere.

This might include social media campaigns, petitions and lobbying elected representatives. In one instance, a coalition of teams collaborated to run a public advocacy event focusing on Iran, including a panel discussion featuring former political prisoner Kylie Moore-Gilbert, an art installation created by dissident Iranian expats and catering provided by the local Iranian diasporic community.

The campaigns are student-directed, in consultation with faculty, country specialists, advocacy professionals and civil society organisations. We encourage students to leverage their different disciplinary backgrounds and creative and personal skills to develop advocacy ideas that are reported to Scholars at Risk, to serve as a basis for future advocacy.

Our student teams have campaigned for scholars as far afield as Nicaragua and Bahrain. Students are especially motivated by the predicaments of fellow students such as Azerbaijani PhD student Bahruz Samadoz, and Marfa Rabkova, who was jailed in Belarus in 2020 and has just been released.

Benefits for students and wider society

Students tell us that our academic freedom seminar is much more than “just another class”. Advocating on behalf of real scholars, often in life-or-death situations, motivates students in a way that they often have not experienced before. They respond well to the emphasis on self-directed learning and the freedom to design and conduct their own campaigns (including the opportunity to apply for small grants to implement their ideas). The skills they acquire in human rights research and advocacy, collaborative project work and persuasive writing are transferable to many future workplace roles.

But the benefits go much further. Students gain a new appreciation of the function of the university in society, and of the core values that are fundamental to their operation but often invisible to students (and sometimes to faculty as well). This has the potential to increase their engagement with the institution, deepening their sense of purpose in their own university education. But it also hones their understanding of, and capacity to engage in, democratic practices. It fosters citizens who value critical debate, seek truth and resist misinformation and manipulation.

Teaching academic freedom at your institution

Teaching students about academic freedom and why it matters (for scholars, students and society), and equipping them with skills to defend it worldwide, prepares them to become ethical, engaged and responsible global citizens.

Scholars at Risk supports student advocacy seminars at dozens of member universities across Europe and North America (and one, so far, in Australia). The model is flexible and can be adapted to different disciplines and settings including undergraduate, postgraduate and internships. Faculty are – unsurprisingly − given great freedom to design their own course, with Scholars at Risk providing resources and support, including connections to country specialists and other student seminars. The ability to connect with, and draw inspiration from, student peers globally offers important opportunities for collaboration, solidarity and success.

Kate Murphy is senior lecturer in history; Tony Williams is a lecturer in history; and Suzy Killmister is associate professor in philosophy, all at Monash University.

If you would like advice and insight from academics and university staff delivered direct to your inbox each week, sign up for the Campus newsletter.