116. Academic freedom: 25 years and counting

The (international) higher education community continues to grapple with the reality that academic freedom - long regarded as essential to open, democratic societies - remains vulnerable across the globe. Today, scholars face escalating pressures from political forces, censorship, and conflict, while institutions navigate increasingly complex ethical and geopolitical terrain. Scholars at Risk, an international network of higher education institutions and individuals working together to protect scholars and promote academic freedom, is celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2026. A quarter century of defending the right to think, to question and to share ideas. But how has this work evolved? What does the landscape look like now, in 2026? And how can institutions and individuals meaningfully contribute to protecting academic freedom in their own contexts?

In this EAIE podcast episode, host Laura Rumbley speaks with Robert Quinn, founding Executive Director of Scholars at Risk. Together, they explore how SAR’s mission and activities have developed over the past 25 years, which achievements have been most meaningful, and the threats and opportunities shaping academic freedom today. Don’t miss this thoughtful and forward-looking conversation and tune into this episode of the EAIE Podcast.

About Robert Quinn
Robert Quinn is a human rights advocate, lecturer, lawyer, and executive director of the Scholars at Risk Network, (SAR) an international movement of over 600 higher education institutions and thousands of individuals in over 50 countries dedicated to protecting at-risk scholars, promoting academic freedom, and defending everyone’s freedom to think, question and share ideas. Robert is a co-editor of Free to Think, SAR’s annual reports on attacks on universities worldwide; co-instructor on the free online course "Dangerous Questions: Why Academic Freedom Matters" (long-form MOOC course, with Futurelearn and short-form mini-course with Amnesty International); and the host of the Free to Think podcast, featuring conversations with inspiring people working at the intersection of power and ideas. 

Additional resources
For further insights into the topics touched on in this episode, the following resources may be of interest:
→ Scholars at Risk – Free to Think
→ Supporting at-risk researchers in Europe
→ Encieh Erfani and Daniel Munier: What’s happening in Iran?
→ Sinead O’Gorman: Academic freedom in a complex world

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:05

It's EAIE podcast time once again. Whether you're a first-timer or a longtime listener, welcome to episode 116 in our series, which covers all things international higher education across Europe and beyond. I'm Laura Rumbly, Director for Knowledge Development and Research at the EAIE. And today our conversation is both celebratory and sobering. On the celebratory side, we're taking note of the extraordinary work of Scholars at Risk, the standout NGO working tirelessly on behalf of threatened scholars around the world. In 2026, they celebrate 25 years of commitment to this vital work, and it's an important milestone that we should all be aware of. The sobering part of the story, of course, is the fact that Scholars at Risk's mission is ever more important and critical today, in a world in which academic freedom remains under disturbing threat in many contexts. To help us better understand where Scholars at Risk, or SAR for short, has come from over the last two and a half decades, and the global academic freedom landscape they, and all of us, face today, we turned to Rob Quinn. Rob is a human rights advocate, lecturer, lawyer, and executive director of SAR, which he's been associated with since the earliest days of the organization's founding. He's a co-editor of Free to Think, SAR's annual reports on attacks on universities worldwide. He's a co-instructor on the free online course titled Dangerous Questions: Why Academic Freedom Matters, which is offered in both long-form and short form formats. And he's the host of the Free to Think podcast, which is described as featuring inspiring conversations with people working at the intersection of power and ideas. As I hope you'll agree once you listen to the conversation ahead, Rob certainly offers up tremendous inspiration in terms of helping us understand both Scholars at Risk's history and mission and the urgent issues that continue to make its work necessary today. Thanks for joining us for this timely and important conversation on academic freedom, 25 years and counting. Rob, thank you for taking the time to spend with us today to talk about very important things in regard to academic freedom. I'd like to begin by asking you a little bit about your own journey into this field. How is it that you became involved in the work of supporting academic freedom and what has this meant to you personally?

SPEAKER_00 2:39

Well, first it's great to be here and with you, Laura, and with EAIE. Really appreciated the partnership we've had over many years. And that led to periods of work or study in Latin America and Asia. I lived in China for a while during Tiananmen. So I saw what happens to universities and students then and ultimately led me down the path of law school human rights. And then I came into the beginning of Scholars at Risk. And I was really attracted by first the mission of helping individuals, right? And not just any individuals, but individuals who are whose whose career is about developing and sharing knowledge for the public good, to know. So trying to make a better world through knowledge. And then beyond that, I was attracted by the idea that we could reach for more and not just help individuals, but if the community came together and we engaged with the public, we could maybe accelerate the path to that better world.

SPEAKER_01 3:54

I'm so delighted that you mentioned a bit about your international education experience because the EAE audience obviously is very interested in that. And it's really nice to know that that was a formative experience for you. And it had to have been to be involved or present uh in China at that time in 1989, I think that was.

SPEAKER_00 4:12

88, 89, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:13

88, 89. Okay. Um can I ask, were you involved in the foundation, the founding of Scholars at Risk itself, or did you join after the organization had already kind of started up?

SPEAKER_00 4:25

Uh kind of a little of both. So the the origin story was a group of faculty at the University of Chicago who, hearing a radio interview with an exiled scholar, um, said to themselves, you know, there used to be programs to help people like this. Why aren't there any more? Uh and they were probably smarter than me, but they got a grant to try to pilot the program, and they hired me. So together we started it. Um I thought I signed on for a year. Uh and it's been it's been 26. Um, but I think that's a testament to how interesting it's been. I think how impactful it's been, and also really and mostly to this amazing community of people and partners that we work with. Um I can't think of a better group to work with.

SPEAKER_01 5:12

So you've been with the organization from the beginning, and here uh Scholars at Risk, SAR is uh celebrating a milestone year, 25 years in 2026. Could I ask you to reflect a little bit on how the work of SAR has evolved over this time? And in what ways do you think there's been consistency in in its approach and operations, and in what ways maybe some innovations and differences across that period?

SPEAKER_00 5:37

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think I think we've been consistent to the founding mission statement as I understood it, which is build a network. So the first job is to build a network, because universities have always taken in exiles, but if we do it together, we can do it more effectively and we can help more. So step one, build a network to protect threatened scholars and promote academic freedom. So, so all of that is in our founding statement. And to me, that's our guard guide star. So uh, and so ever since we've been implementing that. And so in the first, you know, four or five years, it was building the early network of 20, 25 institutions and helping our first and second and third scholars, right? Um, but then once we started to get that down and the network started to get bigger, the logic of adding on other activities grew right out of the casework. So the advocacy work started from literally a professor from Ethiopia where we had a job for him, but he was arrested on his way to the airport. So it would make no sense to say our mission was if you made it on the plane, you're part of our mission, but because you didn't, you're not, right? So so the advocacy grew out of that. And then if you do individual case advocacy, well, eventually you realize you can have a bigger impact by doing issue advocacy and raising awareness. So our our free to think reports and our monitoring project come out of that, right? And then you go a little bit further and you say, you know, this reporting on violations after the fact, we can only do so much. We don't have hard power, right? But if we get there earlier, if we raise the alarm earlier, if we talk to people about why this matters and and why the university matters to the public, you know, it serves the public, not just academics. Uh, and that's where our research and learning work comes in, trying to sort of change norms and behaviors. So to me, all of it grows from the same seed. Uh, and I think there has been innovation all along the path. Um, but I'm constantly going back to checking our two main touchstones of everything we do is with partners with the network, and everything we do is tested against the experience of the cases.

SPEAKER_01 7:49

Oh, so interesting to hear about those dynamics. I really appreciate understanding that. So there's an um, you know, quite a body of experience now across a quarter century. And I'm sure it's difficult to uh potentially name the standout moments, you know, across that history. But I wonder if there is any one or possibly two things that you're really most proud of when you reflect on this history of advocacy and support for academic freedom.

SPEAKER_00 8:18

Well, so in terms of standout sort of memories, um I have found that whether it's our university partners who are hosting scholars, um, students in the advocacy seminars who who meet some of the scholars or meet their family members in the case of those who are detained, um, you know, or the staff, I think all of us intuitively, you know, we can't we can't hold on to every case in our head and our heart as much as we'd like to. But everybody holds on to a few stories, you know. So those are standout. So um, you know, to me, one of our scholars who who told the secret police they can't come into her classroom. Uh, you know, so they couldn't take her students, their heart is for 90 minutes. You know, that wow that stands out for me, that courage, that commitment, you know. Um, you know, in terms of the um, otherwise, what I'm most proud of really is I'm most proud of the people. Um, you know, the whole project works because people want it to work. Um, you know, we started, we launched the network. We literally have no jobs to give out, but we put out a list and people we don't even know on the list call us and say, hey, I'm interested in that one. We might be able to help that one. So that, as I said, is a great community to be in. Um, the scholars themselves who don't shut up when people tell them to, who are committed to not just their their trade, you know, their particular discipline, but really to, I think, a vision of humanity and of the world that's grounded in we'll resolve our differences through knowledge. We will discuss it, you know, acknowledging complexity and not being afraid of it, and trying to find a path for for all of us. Um, you know, and then of course the the staff, our board, our donors, all of whom worked very hard to make it possible to do what we're doing. So, so most proud really about the people in the community, um, but also in the work. You know, I think our free to think, our monitoring work has helped to put academic freedom on the global agenda uh in an important way. I think we've helped to pioneer casework and helped to give birth to now a community of SAR national sections in different countries, of other programs in countries where the either government support or private support is creating opportunities for threatened scholars. So I'm I'm proud of that. And I think on the research and learning side, we are beginning in a more robust way to synthesize the experience of thousands of cases and thousands of monitoring incidents to identify interventions that I think will help move the needle, where we can push back against some of the threats we're seeing these days, particularly in places where previously we thought things were good and safe.

SPEAKER_01 11:18

As you describe all the work that you're doing, it strikes me that you and your colleagues are really privy to some of the worst behavior that humanity can offer and some of the best. I mean, it sounds like there's some really profound and moving moments that you experience in the work that you do. And that must be, on the one hand, exhausting but extremely gratifying.

SPEAKER_00 11:38

Yeah, you know, I mean, I think it's a really interesting population to work with. You know, some scholars, they just want to do their work, you know, but some power or authority gets in the way because they don't want that knowledge out there. So in our very early years, we had a a professor of of public health who worked on infant mortality. All he wanted to do was find out the real numbers. And the government didn't want him to advertise the real numbers because the real numbers were higher than what the government said they were, right? Um just a few weeks ago, I learned about uh a Ukrainian scholar who is working through one of our partner programs, the PSI program in Germany at a university that's in the network. Uh, and she and her faculty host, they're soil scientists, right? So they they study literally dirt, right?

SPEAKER_01 12:28

Seems pretty non-controversial.

SPEAKER_00 12:31

Exactly. But what but what I learned from them is there's a term in soil science for earth that is damaged by war, by conflict. So they are studying how to make sure that Ukraine can still be a food source for Europe and the world after this conflict. And so the the Ukrainian scholar went to the front lines to take soil samples. So think of that courage to just take soil samples on a war. And with the German counterpart, they have 70-year-old soil, 70-year-old conflict-affected soil in Germany. And together they're going to figure out how to keep feeding the world. You know, so those things really stand out, and you can see how things where you had no idea how important they are to literally the population of the earth are going on in universities, and we really need to protect that.

SPEAKER_01 13:22

Indeed. Oh, it's just it gives me chills to think about these things and all that we don't know that these scholars are helping us to know and know is important. It's so remarkable. So Scholars at Risk is not a new visitor to the EAIE podcast series. We spoke with SAR colleagues in both 2021 and 2023. Interestingly, the 2023 episode had us zooming in on the situation in Iran at the time. We'll put those links to those past episodes in our show notes for people who might be interested in listening back. But now here we are in 2026. And these are also, you know, particularly turbulent times. As you consider the state of play around the world with respect to academic freedom and scholar safety, what might be some of the more significant threats or opportunities that are on your radar or SAR's radar at the moment?

SPEAKER_00 14:13

Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, the the threats are obvious. Um, you know, at our founding conference, our our poster, um, we went in literally into the libraries. This is how long ago, right? And we we found newspaper clippings from all around the world of of small articles or headlines about attacks on universities, right? And the collage of articles was intended to show that these are happening all the time and they're connected, right? Um, uh, but often if you only see one at a time, uh, you know, you don't see that, right? And I used to say in my in my talks on campuses in the first five or six years was if you go to any newspaper for three days in a row and flip through all the pages, I guarantee you're gonna find a story of an attack that involves attacks on on scholars or students, right? Well, well, now those are on the front pages, right? And they're and they're they're in the podcast, they're in the blog. So it's all all very, very obvious. And and I think for us it's um it's certainly the conflict situation. So it used to be in our early years, of course, we dealt with conflict in different parts of the world, in in Colombia, in um Indonesia, in Sri Lanka, in uh Congo. But the the conflicts, frankly, weren't quite as as mass-scale full population conflicts. Uh, and they were there were gaps between them. But really, in the last 10 years, we've seen much more full population conflict. But of course, it's not just scholars, but the whole country. Um, and they seem to be overlapping now, right? So uh so Iraq and Syria and Afghanistan, of course, now Ukraine and Sudan and now Iran, right? So that's a challenge for any um program that's based on direct assistance of individuals. How do we scale up our activities as best we can um to try to help as many as possible, right? And and so that's an active debate and something we're looking at ourselves and in this community of partners that we have that's working on scholar assistance. Um at the same time, I think um the second main challenge of the moment, which is new in our 25 years, is a substantial pressure uh on democratic states uh or within democratic states, a sort of democratic erosion problem, or some scholars call it autocratizing. So states that are in the process of becoming autocracies. Um uh and that's really scary because the places that previously had a consensus understanding of why the university matters, not just to scholarship, but to democracy, to freedom to allow people to live their best lives, um, is all under pressure right now. And so our hope in this anniversary is not just to mark a milestone, but to relaunch our effort in a way that we can bring to bear in those places the experience of places where it's gotten out of hand and and people have lost that that opportunity to be free and think and question and share the ideas they want to before, frankly, it's too too late. Um so those are the threats. On the other hand, I think the opportunities aren't as obvious, right? And I think now because this has been in the headlines and because it's in the headlines closer to home for a lot of people within our our network coverage area, um, I don't have to spend much time explaining that universities are under attack. People see that. And uh, I really don't even have to spend that much time explaining why it matters, right? So we have an opportunity to build more unity and to act on it based on experience, right? To get out of the mindset that there's nothing we can do about this, but instead to say if we're smart, if we have solidarity, if we use strategic interventions, we can defend things that we care about.

SPEAKER_01 18:05

We really do need to hold on to those opportunities that you've mentioned. Um, and also wanting to note that autocratizing is a new verb for me. And I'm sorry to have learned it, but it really does capture the moment, I think, in super important ways. You've mentioned now this interest in seizing the moment uh uh at this anniversary um year. In celebration of SAR's 25th, you've launched an anniversary pledge campaign for academic freedom. And I understand that already dozens of institutions have committed to involvement in that. Could you guide us through the thinking about the pledge itself, the theme truth matters, and what you hope this exercise will achieve?

SPEAKER_00 18:44

Well, you know, the anniversary and and the just the pledge idea really is an attempt to celebrate that community that we've we've been talking about, right? To say, you know, nothing is because of the office of scholars at risk. Everything is because of the participants who are contributing their time, their energy, their spirit, their their passion to helping colleagues or to promoting this value set that I believe is the university, right? Um so first celebration, uh, but also recommitment, saying, okay, look, this is a this is a pivot moment, not just for our project, but I think honestly for humanity, right? So the debate, and I usually say when people say, well, what is academic freedom? I usually have to say to them, okay, well, that depends on what do you think the university is. And the answer to that is depends on what kind of society you want to live in. Um and if you want to live in a free society, well, then the university is an engine for developing important information for the public good, right? So um, if you don't care about being in a free society, then the university can just be an engine for sustaining the status quo and serving the state, right? I want to live in the first version. I want to live in the free version of humanity. Um, and if if that's not just a value statement, also, because if you just believe in the core mission of the university, which is really where the truth matters theme comes from, the core mission of the university, we kind of boiled it down. You know, we're living in a moment of polarization and people are contesting everything. So let's boil it down. The core function of the university is to seek out and produce knowledge for the public good, right? And and that for that public good is, I think, essential, right? So not just for the state, but for the public good, right? Um, so fundamentally truth seeking, as I I would say it, right? Um, so so the theme was trying to get focus on that, to see if we can get consensus on that. And then that opens the door to talking about what do you mean by truth and what is truth. And that gets us to the processes that universities all over the world use all the time. That's what seminar discussions are about, that's what laboratories are about, right? So none of us are claiming we own truth, but we're saying we're on the same page that we're all trying to find it, and we're going to try to find it, you know, together. So, so celebrating that in a forward-looking way, um, because it is and it leads to the most truth, right, is important. And the most truth leads to for regular people or for people who will never go to university or don't want to go to university, the fact that there's this engine punching punching out truthful information gives them more information to have more freedom and agency and autonomy in their lives in the decisions that are going to affect them, right? So, so setting up that virtuous machinery is is part of it. Um, but also part of it in this truth matters moment is a declaration against the forces that have been eroding that, right? Who are trying to silence questions, trying to silence um the public getting good quality information to make those decisions about their lives, right? And so all of us have a role in truth seeking. Um, those who are in In academic functions, it's their primary role. But all of us who are just citizens in the world have a role in sustaining those functions because it matters to our lives.

SPEAKER_01 22:10

As we consider wrapping up this all too short conversation, I wonder if we could get at that point of what we can do, each of us individually. I love that terminology of virtuous machinery. We are all part of that in some way, or or should aspire to be, I would hope. And I wonder as we conclude here, if there is a particular key message you'd really like our listeners to take away from this conversation, what's your best advice for how each of us could play our part to help protect, protect, and advance academic freedom in our own context, in our whatever our small or big spheres of influence might be?

SPEAKER_00 22:45

Yeah, well, so I mean, it comes down to, again, the choice of what kind of world you want to live in. But if you want to live in a world with maximum freedom and agency and well-being for you, certainly, but for as many people as possible, then we've got to have, as I said, machinery to produce knowledge that will help us reconcile very difficult questions, right, about resource allocation and about conflict and about culture and so forth. So, and and and universities can help us do that. They're not the only place, but they can help us do that, right? So, so what can anybody do, whether you're in a university or not? Anybody can be a truth seeker, right? So, so anybody can cultivate their own appetite uh for quality information, right? Anybody can interrogate the sources and biases of the information they're absorbing, right? And and maybe they're absorbing it through social media. And certainly we know there's there's quality and bias problems in social media, but it's also in what they're reading in newspapers or if they're still reading books in the books they're taking in, right? Or or whatever. But so all of us can be that kind of um curious skeptic of information, not just skeptic, right? Just skeptics, not enough. Curious skeptic to try to advance our own appetite and appreciation for better quality information. And so that's step one. Step two is if we can help others, uh, whether it's our children or our parents or our grandparents, but if we can help others develop appetites for quality information and informed decision making, that's even better, right? Um, and then the third step, of course, is for those of us who are um either called to attempt to be in contact with what I would call truth destroyers, um, or find ourselves adjacent to truth destroyers, either because we're in communities where that type of behavior is circulating. And by truth destroyers, I mean I don't mean people we disagree with. That's a normal part of truth seeking, is being engaged with people we disagree with. That's fine. What I mean is people who are actively or organizations actively seeking to obscure the truth, to put out misinformation, to put out fraudulent information without any regard for the consequences, uh, just for their own for agenda, right? So any of us who are adjacent to that, we can at least not validate it. We can at least not minimize it and say, oh, well, they probably didn't mean that, or, or, oh, well, you know, most of the time they're okay, kind of thing. We can call it out as what it is, which is dangerous. Um, some people um go further. And a lot of the scholars that we work with over the years, they go further and they affirmatively try to push back on that information. And and they do it even when they know there's going to be great risk. So that's one of the reasons our program exists. And on our our podcast, we have a free to think podcast. That's the question I often ask the scholars is did you know you were crossing the line? Did you know that there would be consequences for speaking truth against that, that destroying behavior? Uh, and that's why it's so inspiring to work with many of them. But so not all of us are called to play that frontline role, but all of us can help to at least contain the damage by not validating or or poo-pooing um that sort of destructive engagement that happens uh, particularly at this moment in time.

SPEAKER_01 26:12

Thank you for sharing those very actionable items and the layers of possibility of engagement and activity. I think that's extremely helpful to each of us. On behalf of the EAAE, I would like to congratulate SAR on this milestone moment, 25 years, but also thank you for all the work that SAR has done indeed to try and help improve this very complicated and dangerous world that we live in. Um it's it's really such a um an honor to be able to spend this time with you and let you know how much it means to so many of us out in the community. Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_00 26:46

Thank you, Laura. And really, I have to echo that because EAIE has been such an important partner. Um, you welcomed us into your meetings in your community very early on, and and that absolutely helps spread the network uh across Europe and across the world. And and it means a lot. And I I I really want to leave everybody to know that I know the headlines are a little bleak, but at the same time, we really are making a difference, uh, not just in the lives of individuals, but I think in advancing the sort of value set that comes with having world-class free open universities. Um, and I see nothing but potential for us to continue to make a difference going forward.

SPEAKER_01 27:24

Thank you so much for those final words. I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 27:27

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 27:28

That was Rob Quinn, Executive Director of Scholars at Risk, which this year is celebrating 25 years of sustained advocacy for academic freedom around the world. SAR describes itself as an international movement of over 600 higher education institutions and thousands of individuals in over 50 countries dedicated to protecting at-risk scholars, promoting academic freedom, and defending everyone's freedom to think, question, and share ideas. The EAIE is an active part of that movement, and we hope that you are too, or would consider getting more actively involved. To learn more about SAR and the work of academic freedom advocacy, please check out the notes and links associated with this podcast. Before we wrap up, a quick heads up for all of you planning ahead. We're just one month away from the kickoff of early bird registration for the 36th annual EAIE conference and exhibition in Glasgow. The schedule at a glance is already live on our website, so you can start mapping out your perfect conference experience as early as today. Even better, you don't have to wait to sort out the logistics. You can also already book your travel and hotel stay. Just head over to the event page on our website. That's www.eai.org and get everything lined up. Glasgow is waiting, and this year's EAIE conference and exhibition is shaping up to be something special. As we wrap up this episode, it's a bit of a long goodbye. We're actually taking a spring-summer hiatus with the podcast, which means our next episode will be coming your way in August. If you have any suggestions for the topics or speakers you'd like to hear from in the second half of the year, we'd love to hear from you. Please write to us at knowledge at eAIE.org. Until then, all good wishes to you from the EAIE.