Academic Freedom, Institutional Courage, and Anti‑Fascism

Judith Butler

University of California, Berkley & Ciampi Visiting Scholar

Chair: Mario Pianta | Scuola Normale Superiore
Discussants: Donatella della Porta & Sevgi Doğan | Scuola Normale Superiore

Abstract

The framing of “academic freedom” in the United States is linked to the constitutional rights of free expression, although the two cannot be conflated.  The recent questioning of “first amendment absolutism” in the US has had repercussions for academic freedom.  The right-wing accuses the Left of censorship; the Left accuses the center and far right of bringing surveillance, censorship, and extortion to higher education. Neither side of this debate moves beyond the US framework to draw from transnational models for academic freedom. As new fascist trends tend to defund universities, including the humanities, arts, and interpretive social sciences, it becomes all the more necessary to strengthen our conceptions of what values universities should represent and protect.  Those models not only situate academic freedom within the right to education movement, but insist upon the relationship of universities to democratic life.  Although the attack on critical thought in higher education is taking place in tandem with the attack on democratic institutions and values, the link between the two is only tenuously made.  Moreover, an insistence that universities contribute to democratic life has to question the nation-state framework for universities, even though public funding is invariably dependent on those states.  The importance of transnational collaboration and research implies a transnational framework for higher education and, specifically, for the forms of critical thought that rely on multilingualism and transnational bonds.  The “world” of academic freedom should move against new fascist movements, beyond the nation-state and monolingualism, and toward a conception of a transnational democratic ethos which would give priority to multilingualism and global critical theory.  Fascism can be anti-intellectual or become its own intellectual project. For universities to fulfill their “critical” promise, they must oppose the fascist destruction and appropriation of knowledge.  To accomplish this task, we must start to talk about institutional courage.