From Bologna to Gaza: Universities Under Siege

Universities have long been heralded as bastions of free thought, open inquiry, and democratic discourse. Founded in 1088, the University of Bologna—widely considered the oldest university in continuous operation—was governed not by Church or crown, but by its students and professors, who insisted on intellectual independence. This tradition of autonomy laid the groundwork for universities to become spaces where ideas could be debated freely and power questioned openly.

In theory, universities continue to serve as the intellectual infrastructure of democracy. But across the globe, a different picture is emerging—one in which academic institutions are under siege. From surveillance and censorship to political purges and state violence, the global assault on academic freedom raises a pressing question: Are universities still the foundations of democracy, or have they become one of its last battlegrounds?

Few examples illustrate the erosion of academic freedom more starkly than Turkey after the 2016 failed coup attempt. The Erdoğan government accused thousands of academics of supporting terrorism or involvement in the coup. Over 6,000 university employees were dismissed by decree; passports were revoked; and public discourse was stifled. One especially chilling episode was the persecution of the “Academics for Peace”—a group of over 1,100 scholars who signed a petition calling for an end to state violence in Kurdish regions. Many lost their jobs; some were prosecuted. Universities, once centers of debate, were reduced to echo chambers of state propaganda.

Hungary offers another case where universities have become political targets. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government forced Central European University (CEU), founded by George Soros, to relocate most of its operations to Vienna. Ostensibly over accreditation issues, the move was part of a broader campaign against what the government labeled “liberal” and “foreign-influenced” institutions. Orbán’s administration also restructured the governance of Hungarian universities, placing them under government-controlled foundations and effectively ending institutional autonomy. These moves coincided with crackdowns on gender studies and migration research, disciplines viewed as politically subversive.

In India, academic freedom is increasingly threatened by rising nationalism. Scholars critical of the government face intimidation, and student activists have been arrested under sedition laws. The Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), once a hub of left-wing thought, has seen faculty and students harassed, funding slashed, and campus debates violently disrupted by nationalist groups. Government-approved narratives dominate curricula, and historical revisionism has become common in textbooks. In a climate where questioning the state can brand one an “anti-national,” the democratic mission of education is being systematically undermined.

Academic freedom in Israel is increasingly constrained by political pressures during wartime and legislation limiting open discourse. The ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict casts a long shadow over universities, where nationalist sentiments often shape institutional policies and public behavior.

During the current Gaza war, the suppression of dissent has intensified. At Hebrew University, Professor Suha Shalhoub-Kevorkian, a Palestinian scholar of law and human rights, was suspended in April 2024 after publicly criticizing Israeli military conduct and accusing the state of genocide in Gaza. Her suspension followed sustained media attacks and political pressure, raising serious concerns about university autonomy and the space for critical scholarship. Dr. Sebastian Ben-Daniel came under institutional scrutiny after attempting to organize a teach-in featuring voices critical of Israeli policies at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. The event was shut down, and his academic standing has since been subject to review.

Meanwhile, recent and longstanding legislation continues to erode academic freedom. The “Nakba Law,” which allows the government to withhold funding from institutions that commemorate the 1948 Palestinian displacement, discourages scholarly engagement with Palestinian history. Additional proposals to penalize “anti-Zionist” expression or require ideological alignment from faculty further narrow the boundaries of permissible academic discourse.

Palestinian universities face even more severe challenges. In the West Bank, institutions like Birzeit University have been repeatedly raided by Israeli military forces, with students and faculty detained and research activities disrupted. In Gaza, the devastation has been catastrophic. Since the outbreak of the current war, multiple universities—including the Islamic University of Gaza and Al-Azhar University—have been damaged or destroyed by Israeli airstrikes. Faculty and students have been killed, campuses rendered unusable, and higher education in the territory has effectively collapsed.

Even before the war, Gaza’s universities operated under siege conditions, with limited access to materials, equipment, and external academic exchange. In addition to the external blockade and bombardment, scholarly life in Gaza has also been constrained by internal pressures, including ideological oversight and restrictions imposed by Hamas, which has curtailed academic freedom and interfered in university governance.

These developments reflect a broader trend in which academic institutions—whether Israeli or Palestinian—are caught in the crossfire of national politics, ideology, and armed conflict. In such a climate, the university’s role as a space for inquiry, dissent, and democratic reflection is increasingly under threat.

Despite constitutional protections for free speech and institutional autonomy, U.S. universities have increasingly found themselves at the center of political battles, especially during periods of national crisis. The current Gaza war has sharply intensified this pressure, as federal and state authorities move to punish campuses perceived as sympathetic to Palestinian perspectives.

Columbia University has been one of the most visible examples of a university caving to political pressure. Following large-scale student protests and the erection of solidarity encampments on campus, Columbia suspended student groups including Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace. The administration cited public safety concerns, but critics argue it was an attempt to preempt threats from influential donors, trustees, and lawmakers. Congressional hearings intensified the scrutiny, and prominent politicians called for federal funding to be cut unless universities cracked down on what they characterized as antisemitic and “un-American” behavior.

At the national level, political backlash has escalated into direct policy measures. In early 2024, under mounting pressure from Republican lawmakers and following aggressive rhetoric from political leaders, the U.S. government announced that foreign students participating in or affiliated with “antisemitic or anti-American” campus protests could be subject to visa revocation. This effectively bars some international students from entering or remaining in the country, a move reminiscent of the Trump administration’s 2020 attempt to deport students enrolled in online-only courses during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Harvard University has emerged as a central actor in the legal fight against these policies. It has initiated legal proceedings challenging the constitutionality of the international student ban, arguing that the measure violates due process and endangers the principles of academic exchange and institutional independence. The university’s legal team, joined by several civil liberties organizations, has framed the ban as a dangerous precedent that allows the federal government to police campus expression through immigration enforcement.

Meanwhile, broader threats to higher education persist. There have been renewed calls to strip certain universities of their nonprofit tax-exempt status, particularly those that refuse to discipline student activism critical of U.S. foreign policy. These efforts mirror the Trump administration’s earlier tactics, which included using executive orders and public intimidation to influence campus policies.

Together, these developments underscore the vulnerability of even the most prestigious universities to political coercion. Faced with the threat of lost funding, revoked visas, and media vilification, some institutions have bowed to pressure, while others—like Harvard—have taken a stand. The broader consequence is a climate of fear and constraint, in which the foundational principles of academic freedom and open inquiry are increasingly subject to ideological litmus tests imposed from outside the academy.

Academic freedom has steadily eroded in Russia under President Vladimir Putin’s rule. Independent institutions such as the European University at St. Petersburg and the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences have faced severe restrictions, including license revocations and politically motivated audits. Scholars critical of the Kremlin’s foreign or domestic policies risk losing their positions or facing criminal charges under expansive laws against “extremism” or “discrediting the military.” Since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, repression has intensified: university faculty and students who oppose the war face surveillance, dismissal, or imprisonment. With curricula rewritten to align with state narratives and external partnerships severed, Russian universities have become tools of nationalist indoctrination rather than spaces for inquiry.

Universities are not automatically the foundations of democracy—they become so only when they are free to question power, explore complexity, and teach with integrity. Around the world, the assault on academic freedom signals a deeper democratic backsliding. When scholars are silenced, students intimidated, and curricula politicized, the intellectual commons shrinks—and with it, the democratic imagination.

The fight for universities must be waged with the same urgency as the fight for democracy itself. Around the world—from liberal democracies to authoritarian states, from conflict zones to elite campuses—the erosion of academic freedom is not an anomaly but a defining feature of our era.

Universities were not always understood to be spaces for dissent and political expression. When the University of Bologna was founded, it did not guarantee the right to protest or even to teach freely. But it established a radical premise for its time: that knowledge must be protected from interference by the Church and the state. That principle is no less urgent today.

We are witnessing a systematic assault on knowledge—from the delegitimization of scientific inquiry and the spread of misinformation to the banning of books and the political monitoring of classroom speech. These are not isolated developments, but signs of a broader transformation: the narrowing of the intellectual commons and the rise of authoritarian thinking. When students are taught to fear ideas rather than explore them, when faculty are punished for their scholarship or beliefs, the university ceases to be a space of inquiry and becomes instead a site of conformity.

The stakes, then, are not academic. They are profoundly political. To defend the autonomy of universities is to protect the conditions under which democratic life becomes possible. The defense of academic freedom cannot be left to universities alone. It must become the work of every citizen who believes in democracy, not tomorrow, but today.