Ongoing pressure on institutional autonomy and academic freedom in authoritarian states has been combined with “historic levels” of pressure on academia in liberal democratic states, principally the United States, according to the director of Scholars at Risk (SAR), which published its new annual report on academic freedom in New York City this week.
Between 1 July 2024 and 30 June 2025 there were 183 violent attacks by state security forces and non-state actors against students and professors in countries including India, Afghanistan, Venezuela, Argentina, Nigeria, Cameroon, Bangladesh, Georgia, Ethiopia, Morrocco, Türkiye, Brazil, Kenya, as well as France and the United States, according to the report 2025 Free to Think: Report of the Scholars at Risk Academic Freedom Monitoring Project (Free to Think).
