The Third Conference on Academic Freedom in the Americas held in the city of Washington was marked by a climate of concern and uncertainty about what Donald Trump’s second presidency will mean for his own country and for the hemisphere. Activists, academics, students, and leaders of universities, who participated last November 20th and 21st in the event organized by the Coalition for Academic Freedom in the Americas (CAFA) and Notre Dame University, expressed alarm at what they called the reactionary escalation that has engulfed the United States and that has echoes in Javier Milei’s Argentina, and even in post-Bolsonaro Brazil. The voices of Nicaraguan and Venezuelan teachers and students were also heard. The leftist dictatorships of Ortega-Murillo and Maduro have been violating the human rights of university students and students for years with almost total impunity. And, at times, with the complicit silence of some academic sectors in Latin America.

The panorama is becoming more complicated for academic freedom throughout the hemisphere. At the same time, questions arise about the future of democracy. When democracy is weakened, education becomes a favorite target of authoritarian governments of all stripes. Cubans who have lived under the Castro-communist dictatorship for more than six decades know this well. Education, whether basic, secondary or university, serves as a platform for the indoctrination of the official ideology. No one is allowed to deviate from the single party line: there is no freedom of expression, no freedom of research and no university autonomy. But, as several colleagues from Brazil, Argentina, and the United States have pointed out, the most radical right-wingers also want to “control” professors and students. Control strategies include the reduction of public funding (the cuts announced in Argentina under the Milei administration) or direct intervention in university governance bodies (as occurred at New College in Florida by order of the Republican Governor De Santis).

X as a battlefield

One of the topics discussed at the conference was the growing influence of large digital conglomerates such as Google, Meta, and Microsoft in university activities and in their ability to control and manipulate the information accessed by professors, students and administrators of educational institutions. Billionaire Elon Musk’s X platform was the subject of particular attention and discussion. Since the social network changed ownership in 2022, the former Twitter, which would later be renamed X, began to undergo transformations in its data access policy and business model. Before Musk’s arrival, academic researchers could access the platform’s data for free by making a request to the company and justifying their need. Now they must pay to be assigned what is known as an API (application programming interface) code that allows them to access the data. Users who want to be certified by the company must also pay an annual fee.

It is not only X’s business model that affects the academic community. It is equally what Brazilian researcher Anna Cláudia Belli called at the conference the amplification of hate speech and misinformation since Musk bought the platform. Musk’s open support for Trump and his participation in the Republican leader’s future administration raise questions about his business ethics and conflicts of interest.

It is timely to recall that Musk ended up paying the US$5 million fine imposed on him by the Brazilian Supreme Court, which allowed the blockade of X in that country to be lifted. This indicates that the billionaire is willing to accept regulatory standards, as he has also done in the European Union under the Digital Services Act.

The procession goes inside

Fabian Salvioli, professor of law, former UN rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, and reparations (2018-2024) and former chair of the UN Commission on Human Rights (2015-2016), reflected in his keynote address on the responsibility of the university itself. He wondered where the civil servants and politicians in charge of conceiving and implementing public policies, often failed and which on numerous occasions lead to corruption, came from. If it is the universities that train the bulk of these people, then they have to look inward, Salvioli said. They cannot shirk their responsibility.

Nor are universities exempt from being spaces of censorship, intimidation and discrimination. It is what I have called in a research I did the “Voldemort effect,” in reference to the Harry Potter character who cannot be named. A new spiral of silence has been taking hold in the hemisphere’s universities, especially in the United States and Canada. Five strategies are aimed at silencing voices that do not follow the orthodoxy identified with the so-called “social justice” ideology: one is the open silencing of viewpoints, that is, the censorship of anything that contradicts the hegemonic doctrine; another is the labeling of any alternative perspective as illegitimate, dangerous or shameful; the hackneyed argument of “security”, especially “emotional”, is also used to avoid necessary debates within the university itself; the excuse of “cultural relativity” is used to justify morally and legally questionable conduct; and finally, the rhetoric of “resistance” is used to legitimize terrorism and violence.

Coming down from the ivory tower

The populist wave, whether from the right or the left, reveals a distrust of the intellectual elites represented in universities.  Science is under suspicion; just look at Trump’s nomination of anti-vaccine activist Robert Kennedy Jr. as Secretary of Health. And the relativization of the concept of “science” since the dissolution of truth and scientific method in academia itself weaken public confidence. Worse still, there are social sectors that perceive the anti-science and anti-university reaction as a confrontation between intellectuals and the common people, contributing to polarization. In Argentina and Brazil, for example, the protest has been instrumentalized with slogans such as “don’t mess with my children” or “my family, my rules”, and even the idea that the “professor is the enemy”, a phenomenon studied by researchers Pâmela Passos and Amanda Mendonça.

How to make academic freedom relevant not only for teachers and students, and how to take it out of the academy so that citizens understand its importance for society as a whole? In 2021, the Inter-American Principles of Academic Freedom and University Autonomy were adopted. Since then, progress has been made in raising awareness at the multilateral level about academic freedom as a human right, both in the Organization of American States and in the United Nations. However, there is still a long way to go to move from principles to action. And even more so, if we think of making these principles an issue that will challenge the majority of people outside the academic sphere.

For many Latin Americans, the university has been a platform for social mobility. It is at this point that most citizens can identify with academic freedom. Without it, access to higher education will be much more restricted and difficult for all, as is becoming evident in dictatorial Nicaragua, and in Chavista Venezuela, where the autonomous public universities have been emptied of professors and students. Access to higher education must also be linked to guaranteeing quality standards in university programs. The university supply market (especially the private one) has expanded without necessarily guaranteeing adequate levels of education and research.

As stated in the call to action at the close of the conference in Washington, without democracy there can be no academic freedom. Nor can there be academic freedom without democracy. Defending that right has to move from abstract principles to a connection with the welfare and rights of the people. And that is more urgent today than ever in the face of authoritarian threats.  

_{*Machine translation proofread by Janaína da Silva.}