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Amy Reid, Jonathan Friedman, Laura Benitez, Jeffrey Adam Sachs
PEN America
More than half of U.S. college and university students now study in a state with at least one law or policy restricting what can be taught or how campuses can operate.
There is no use in sugarcoating things. For higher education in America, 2025 was a year of catastrophe. Across nearly every conceivable front – from state capitals to Capitol Hill and even on social media – America’s politicians have been a full-scale campaign against colleges and universities, with a concerted focus on speech. The toll is immense. Fear among faculty, students, and administrators is widespread. Self-censorship in teaching and research is rampant.
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Ghent University suspended postdoctoral scholar Nathan Cofnas as a “precautionary measure” pending a “preliminary disciplinary investigation.” The reason he is being suspended, however, has little if anything to do with him legitimately criticizing Jason Arday’s scholarship last month by documenting plagiarism in Arday’s doctoral thesis. Ghent is instead suspending Cofnas because his expressed public views are misaligned with the university’s values and therefore “creates a reputational risk”. This is not how academic freedom should work.
In July of this year, the American Association of University Professors endorsed Abdul El-Sayed, a candidate in Michigan’s Democratic primary election for U.S. Senate. Reactions from higher ed commentators played out exactly how you might expect: where defenders saw an obligatory bulwark of academic freedom against GOP incursions, critics saw an own-goal that only further justified those attacks.
However justified the AAUP’s decision may have seemed to some, new research suggests that it will only further fracture public trust in higher education.
