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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Mwenza BlellORCiD, Dr Audrey Verma
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND).
© 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Academic freedom is a necessary principle. Current attempts to (re)conceptualise, (re)frame, and reduce the principles of free speech from universal concepts to specific and narrow conceptions are however underpinned by political expediency and accompanied by erosions to press freedom and protest rights. The current enacting and policing of academic freedom is purposely acontextual, colour-blind, and ignorant of differential costs of dissent and (non)compliance. This paper focuses instead on the interlinked conditions of precarity, neoliberalisation, internationalisation, digitisation, and state-encouraged intervention that lead to increased surveillance, (self-)censorship, and cultures of silencing, to show that women and people of colour are caught in the crosshairs of the ‘culture wars’ in unique ways. Drawing primarily on the United Kingdom Higher Education (UKHE) sector alongside other international examples, this paper contends that the conditions, structures, and policies around research and teaching amplify state-encouraged backlash against the teaching and research on specific topics. It shows that the renewed fervour for academic freedom continues to disguise bad faith ideologies whilst amplifying politicised interests keen to reinforce the status quo. Historically excluded and minoritised academics face new risks and greater pressures building on already deep-rooted institutional cultures of targeted silencing.
Author(s): Blell M, Liu S-JS, Verma A
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: International Journal of Human Rights
Year: 2022
Volume: 26
Issue: 10
Pages: 1822–1841
Online publication date: 07/03/2022
Acceptance date: 08/02/2022
Date deposited: 28/03/2022
ISSN (print): 1364-2987
ISSN (electronic): 1744-053X
Publisher: Routledge
URL: https://doi.org/10.1080/13642987.2022.2041601
DOI: 10.1080/13642987.2022.2041601
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