A total of 395 attacks took place on higher education communities in 49 countries and territories from July 1, 2024 to June 30, 2025, a Scholars at Risk’s Free to Think report said
NEW YORK — A total of 395 attacks has been recorded on higher education communities in 49 countries and territories from July 1, 2024 to June 30, 2025, a Scholars at Risk’s (SAR) Free to Think report has said. The report demonstrates that as violent threats to higher education in authoritarian contexts persist, recent years have also seen an increase in attacks in historically liberal contexts, including in the United States, where national leaders have threatened university autonomy. Protecting universities as spaces for democratic inquiry will require courage, long-term commitment, and solidarity across the higher education sector.
“National leaders have systematically attacked the higher education sector’s ability to foster independent thought and critique power,” said Robert Quinn, SAR’s Executive Director. From Afghanistan to Serbia to the United States, state leaders have cracked down on student and faculty expression, banned the study of disfavoured topics, and targeted individual scholars and students for what they teach, study, or say.
SAR is an international network of over 650 higher education institutions and thousands of individuals in more than 40 countries that is leading the charge in protecting and offering sanctuary to threatened scholars and students.
In the United States, authorities took steps to exert control over higher education. National and sub-national governments used extraordinary applications of long-standing executive and legislative pathways, as well as extra-legal measures, to undermine institutional autonomy and academic freedom. These steps included the cancelling research grants on ideological grounds; attempts to detain and deport noncitizen students and scholars without due process; banning research, teaching, and programming related to equity and other ideologically disfavoured topics; slashing research budgets and personnel; and removing control over research grant evaluations from experts in favor of non-expert political appointees.
“Recent actions by the United States government to put pressure on higher education are unprecedented. They mark the first time a research and innovation superpower has voluntarily dismantled the infrastructure underpinning its global leadership,” Quinn continued. “These actions also undermine American democracy. Universities are incubators of democratic values, skills, and discourse. That’s why they are among the first targets of attack in places experiencing democratic decline.
“Attacks on higher education not only imperil the lives, careers, and wellbeing of scholars and students, they chip away at the foundations of a free society. They must be addressed by an international community of higher education leaders, government officials, and intergovernmental bodies.”
The annual Free to Think report series is a product of SAR’s Academic Freedom Monitoring Project, which raises awareness of attacks on higher education communities worldwide. In addition to those described above, Free to Think 2025 expresses deep concern with respect to the following:
• Police and military forces cracked down violently on university students exercising their right to freedom of expression by protesting their governments or advocating for improved educational conditions. The cases in point are Bangladesh, where protests were brutally and systematically repressed before sparking the prime minister’s resignation, or in Pakistan, which saw a disturbing pattern of forced disappearances targeting Baloch student activists.
• Governments retaliated against universities and faculty members who were supportive of the student movements, such as in Serbia, where the government threatened to defund public universities seen as supportive of the protesters and withheld the salaries of faculty who participated in strikes in support of the student movement.
• Universities increasingly turned to overly broad policies — increasing the risk of arbitrary and inconsistent application — to limit student expression, including where, how, and when students can protest on campus, such as in India where some universities banned students from participating in demonstrations deemed “anti-establishment.”
“While it’s true that higher education around the world is under grave threat, the current moment is also an opportunity for the global academic community to come together and build solidarity,” said Clare Robinson, SAR Advocacy Director. Protecting higher education requires the sector to take three steps: better communicate the value of academic freedom to the public, reject isolationism and build solidarity with their peers, and secure formal legal protections for academic freedom and autonomy based on the Principles for Implementing the Right to Academic Freedom. Additional practical guidance and resources for taking action are outlined in Free to Think 2025’s “Call to Action.”
