Academic Freedom Under Threat From Donor Pressure, Scholars Warn

A panel of distinguished academics convened at the 12th World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE) in Doha, Qatar, expressed deep concern that U.S. universities are under mounting financial and political pressures. According to the panel, this has fostered a climate of fear that suppresses free speech and jeopardizes the core mission of universities as centers of open inquiry. The recent campus protests over the Gaza conflict were cited as a prominent indicator of these trends. [para. 1][para. 2]

Omer Bartov, Dean’s professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University, noted that since the Gaza conflict began on October 7, 2023, there has been substantial intimidation directed at students and faculty on American campuses. Bartov highlighted instances where universities responded to student protests with harsh crackdowns, including calling the police, and described growing reluctance among faculty and foreign students to participate fully in academic life out of fear of repercussions—including threats to visa status. This loss of academic freedom, he argued, reflects deeper issues within the university business model, where donor influence and the threat of government funding cuts erode both faculty autonomy and university ideals. [para. 3][para. 4][para. 5]

Bartov asserted that safeguarding academic freedom is an ongoing struggle, emphasizing that the tenure system was designed to protect faculty who speak out on controversial issues. He stressed that faculty, especially those with tenure, must actively defend the university’s role as a bastion of freedom of ideas. However, Bartov expressed skepticism that a change in the U.S. presidential administration would address these problems, asserting that the entrenched funding structures in American universities are the root cause. He also pointed out that pressures to limit speech have emerged from both ends of the ideological spectrum, with a prior wave of political correctness on campuses also acting to stifle open discourse. [para. 6][para. 7]

Bartov’s solution involves restructuring university funding to be more faculty-led, which he believes would help restore the institution’s original mission: learning for its own sake, rather than market-driven outcomes. His views were echoed by Michael Kent Young, chancellor at NEOM and a former president of three U.S. universities. Young referenced data showing that self-censorship among students has increased over the last six decades, with 65%–70% of conservative and nearly 62% of liberal students reluctant to share their views. He lamented the scarcity of political diversity in academic fields such as the humanities and social sciences and stressed that universities must empower students to confront challenging ideas. [para. 8][para. 9][para. 10][para. 11]

Both Young and Bartov observed that as U.S. universities have shifted toward vocational training and market conformity—spurred in part by declining public funding—there has been a corresponding decline in intellectual openness. In the early 2000s, 75% of Americans saw higher education as a public good, but public funds now make up less than 35% of total investment, heightening private and political pressures on university governance. [para. 12]

Paired with this U.S. perspective, Sheikha Bdulla Al-Misnad shared insights from Qatar, where the government fully supports free education from kindergarten through doctoral studies. Although Qatar is more homogenous and faces different challenges, Al-Misnad maintained that universities globally have historically shown resilience and will adapt to changing political, economic, and social circumstances. Young agreed, noting that of more than 60 enduring European institutions since the Renaissance, 40 are universities—a testament, both concluded, to higher education’s capacity to adapt and endure. [para. 13][para. 14][para. 15][para. 16]