Declaration of The International Network for Epidemiology in Policy (INEP) on Academic Freedom and Freedom of Expression
Coordinating Author: Prof. Wael Al-Delaimy (Past INEP Chair)
Working Group: Prof. Katy Bell (Past INEP Chair), Prof. Kathryn Gwiazdon (Past INEP Secretary), Dr. Annie Sasco, Prof Robin Taylor (INEP Chair).
July 30th, 2025
The International Network for Epidemiology in Policy (INEP) is an international organization that promotes the use of epidemiology to develop evidence-based policies to improve equity, health, and well-being for the global population. As a consortium of 24 epidemiological societies across the globe, of whom a large proportion of its members work alongside or are a part of academia, we are deeply concerned by the recent effort to undermine academic freedom and freedom of expression (AF&FE) at institutions of higher education, and particularly those happening in the United States of America (US) by state and federal government actors. This is being implemented through economic extortion, governmental threat, mass social media disinformation campaigns, cyberbullying, harassment, and other means. In this statement, we focus on recent events in the United States of America, but our concern extends to similar events happening in many other academic institutions globally.
Academic Freedom is Foundational to Democracies. The first ideas of academic freedom are generally attributed to Socrates in ancient Greece, and later to Lehrfreiheit and Lehrnfreiheit (the freedom to teach and learn) (Stone, 2015). In international law, academic freedom falls under the general “right to science” as first set out in Article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UN, 1948). In July 2020, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNOHCHR) released the Report on Academic Freedom and the Freedom of Opinion and Expression that highlights the critical role played by academics and academic institutions, noting that, “without academic freedom, societies lose one of the essential elements of democratic self-governance: the capacity for self-reflection, knowledge generation, and the constant search for improving people’s lives and social conditions” (UNOHCR, 2020). Declines in academic freedom have been seen in response to economic as well as political changes (Figure 1) (Kinzelbach, 2025; Inglehart, 1994; Inglehart, 1995) (Lerch, 2024). Anti-pluralistic (authoritarian) governance has been associated with a significant decline in academic freedom in country-level analyses (Spannagel, 2022; AFI, 2025).
In the US, principles of academic freedom were first articulated in 1915 by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP, 1915). AAUP defines academic freedom as “the freedom of a teacher or researcher in higher education to investigate and discuss the issues in his or her academic field, and to teach and publish findings without interference from administrators, boards of trustees, political figures, donors, or other entities.” (AAUP, n.d.) The AAUP Joint Statement on the Rights and Freedoms of Students reaffirms academic freedoms that extend to students with the rejection of campus speech codes (AAUP, 1992; AAUP, 1994). Despite this, there have been calls for the need to robustly address students’ rights to academic freedom and freedom of expression on campus (Pavela, 2022).
Most recently, the most aggressive government response to limit AF&FE began with student protests at universities across the US. The protests were related to Israel’s actions in Gaza and the Occupied Territories of Palestine, which were financially and politically supported by the US. The protests were triggered by the rapidly escalating death toll in Gaza (Jamaluddine et al 2025), leading to clear violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law, as determined by the International Court of Justice (See INEP’s declaration--Palestine and Israel — epidemiologyinpolicy). This limitation on AF&FE has become such a serious concern for global peace and security, and particularly as it relates to speaking about Israel’s actions in Gaza, that in August 2024, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights of the United Nationals published report A/79/319 Global threats to freedom of expression arising from the conflict in Gaza. The report examines the impact of the conflict in Gaza on freedom of expression globally, including state suppression of protests and dissent and the undermining of academic and artistic freedoms in polarized political environments. The report highlighted “attacks on journalists and media restrictions, endangering access to information about the conflict globally; suppression of protests and dissent and undermining of academic and artistic freedoms in polarized political environment; and restrictions on legitimate political expression in the name of fighting terrorism and antisemitism.” The report also found “an extensive pattern of unlawful, discriminatory and disproportionate restrictions on advocacy for the rights of Palestinian people.” (UNOHCR, 2024)
In the US, government actions include but are not limited to: freezing or threatening to freeze federal funding to academic institutions and entire research departments; surveilling, detaining, and deporting foreign students and visiting professors; threatening foreign students with arrest and deportation; and requiring social media access before foreign visas are approved, leading to an unsafe and unstable learning environment necessary for democratic discourse, and a weakening of research that is necessary for building sound public policy. Faculty, Boards, and Administrators have been replaced, curricula have been removed, and even students giving commencement addresses are being told not to speak of Palestine or certain other topics.
Academic freedom is directly linked with faculty tenure (AAUP, 1915). According to the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), “Contingent faculty (those working off the tenure track) have no meaningful job security and, as a result, find their voice limited in terms of what they can say in the classroom, in their research, and about their institutions” (Stein 2022). As the academic workforce has shifted from mostly full-time tenured/tenure-track faculty to mostly contingent faculty (full-time non-tenure-track or full-time with no tenure system) and part-time faculty, there are fewer faculty with sufficient job security to stand up and speak truth to power on behalf of citizens and students on campus (AAUP, 2023). Higher education institutions have also become dependent on federal grants and private donors. For example, in research fields such as epidemiology, getting tenure is dependent on receipt of competitive federal grants in support of the faculty’s research. Therefore, the fear and intimidation by government and political actors is multiplied by the fear that private donors will stop donating or government grants terminated if the university does not comply with certain political positions or federal demands. Financial survival is being confronted with democratic survival. Cutting federal funding in many cases may effectively reduce academic freedom and freedom of expression on campus by eliminating faculty positions and preventing promotions for tenure.
Even before the concept of academic freedom, freedom of expression has been a bedrock principle of human rights and critical to ensure healthy and secure democracies. In the United States of America, as with many other nations, these rights are secured in the country’s founding documents: the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. Internationally, these rights have been crystallized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and are seen as binding principles of customary international law.
Colleges and Universities in the past and today are foundational to the promotion of democratic ideals and democracy through academic freedom and freedom of expression. College and University campuses create the space for critical inquiry and debate, where educators and students explore, question, and test knowledge towards the creation of more just and sustainable human societies. And this space and these ideas could not occur without academic freedom, or the freedom of individuals within the academic community to pursue knowledge through research, curriculum, student organization, and other academic activities, free of undue interference that seeks to control, censor, or chill scholarship development.
As such, AF&FE is an ethical and legal obligation.
Purpose. The purpose of this declaration is to affirm INEP’s commitment to the promulgation of academic freedom as a public good on university campuses. We hereby express our solidarity with students, faculty, and academics in promoting the ideals, as well as the embodiment of academic freedom.
Declaration
The International Network for Epidemiology in Policy
Guided by our mission to support integrity and promote evidence-based practice and policy, which requires freedom of thought and freedom of critical thinking in academic institutions and society; and
Understanding that academic institutions are the bedrock of democracies where ideas and thoughts thrive in the spirit of accepting the opposing opinions of others, even if they are different from the social norm or the majority; and
Identifying epidemiology as a foundational discipline providing evidence in public health that is threatened by such actions and the obfuscation of the truth by special interests, whether non-governmental, governmental or private, that undermines public health teaching, research, policy, and ultimately a threat to population health at both global and local scales; and
Concerned by the actions by the United States of America and other governments to suppress the freedom of expression that includes the freedom to speak, write, assemble, and express in any form the opinions of the students, staff, faculty, or academic administrators; and
Noting that using financial retaliation or extortion to suppress free thought on campuses is unethical and counter to the values of civilized democratic societies, and
Recognizing that AE&FE comes with responsibility and respect towards each other, while allowing every opinion, no matter how controversial or politically incorrect, to be freely expressed, while protecting the rights of individuals to participate fully in academic life without fear of discrimination or intimidation; and
Supporting AF&FE that does not use misinformation to undermine scientific facts or incite violence and hate crimes; and
Moved to action in support of our colleagues, students, and staff impacted by these actions, by loss of their jobs, education, and legal residency and visa status to continue their work and education; and
Acknowledging the fact that students in the United States of America and elsewhere are continuing the long legacy of civil society activism that uses college spaces for critical inquiry into power, democracy, and the rule of law; and
Noting that those students are exercising their protected rights to speech and expression in order to advocate for state responsibility for human rights and human lives everywhere, free from discrimination.
Therefore, we, the International Network for Epidemiology in Policy, do hereby
Declare our full support for AF&FE, which includes the right to assemble to protest within academic institutions in the United States of America and across the globe; and
Unequivocally condemn any suppression of such speech through retaliatory tactics, including doxxing (a form of cyberbullying by publicly providing personally identifiable information with a malicious intent), financial deprivation, suppression through threats, and detention through legally inappropriate means of those who practice their AF&FE within academic institutions and outside it; and
Unequivocally condemn acts of antisemitism, anti-Palestinian, anti-Arab, anti-Muslim, or any other similar discrimination, as well as condemn the exploitation of antisemitism for political and ideological motives; and
Call upon all governments and their agencies of enforcement to cease any actions that may undermine AE&FE in the name of antisemitism or other politically motivated reasons; and
Call upon academic institutions to support students to practice their rights, resist tactics that intimidate or harass their administrators, faculty, or students, and not support measures that undermine AF&FE; and
Call upon academic administrators to protect the rights of faculty or students who express their views in the classroom and any place on the grounds of their academic institutions by not sharing their names with officials based on participation in peaceful protests or other constitutionally protected forms of expression; and
Join the effort of all people of conscience to preserve the sanctity of academic campuses as the hub for a free and democratic society.
References
American Association of University Professors (AAUP). 1915 Declaration of Principles on Academic Freedom and Academic Tenure, 1915. https://www.aaup.org/NR/rdonlyres/A6520A9D-0A9A-47B3-B550-C006B5B224E7/0/1915Declaration.pdf
American Association of University Professors (AAUP). Joint Statement on Rights and Freedoms of Students, 1992, https://www.aaup.org/reports-publications/aaup-policies-reports/policy-statements/joint-statement-rights-and-freedoms
American Association of University Professors (AAUP). On Freedom of Expression and Campus Speech Codes. https://www.aaup.org/reports-publications/aaup-policies-reports/policy-statements/freedom-expression-and-campus-speech
American Association of University Professors (AAUP). The Freedom to Teach, 2013. https://www.aaup.org/reports-publications/aaup-policies-reports/policy-statements/freedom-teach
American Association of University Professors (AAUP). Data Snapshot: Tenure and Contingency in US Higher Education, March 2023. https://www.aaup.org/sites/default/files/AAUP%20Data%20Snapshot.pdf
American Federation of Teachers (AFT). Academic Freedom, No date (n.d.) https://www.aft.org/position/academic-freedom#:~:text=Specifically%2C%20academic%20freedom%20is%20the,the%20conduct%20of%20scholarly%20inquiry.
Iglehart JK. Rapid changes for academic medical centers. 1. N Engl J Med. 1994 Nov 17;331(20):1391-5. doi: 10.1056/NEJM199411173312025. PMID: 7935726. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7935726/
Jamaluddine Z, Abukmail H, Aly S, Campbell OMR, Checchi F. Traumatic injury mortality in the Gaza Strip from Oct 7, 2023, to June 30, 2024: a capture-recapture analysis [published correction appears in Lancet. 2025 Feb 8;405(10477):468. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(25)00209-0.]. Lancet. 2025;405(10477):469-477. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(24)02678-3
Johnson B, Fuesting M. (2025, May). Two Decades of Change: Faculty Discipline Trends in Higher Education. May 2025. CUPA-HR. https://www.cupahr.org/surveys/research-briefs/two-decades-of-change-faculty-discipline-trends-in-higher-ed-may-2025/
Kinzelbach K, Lindberg SI, Lott L, Panaro AV. 2025. Academic Freedom Index 2025 Update. FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg and V-Dem Institute. doi:10.25593/open-fau-1637
https://academic-freedom-index.net/research/Academic_Freedom_Index_Update_2025.pdf
Pavela G. Student Academic Freedom has Ancient Roots. Medium.com. January 26, 2022. https://medium.com/@gpavela/student-academic-freedom-has-ancient-roots-c1360fc719d0
Spannagel J, Kinzelbach K. The Academic Freedom Index and Its indicators: Introduction to new global time-series V-Dem data. Qual Quant. 2022 Oct 13:1-21. doi: 10.1007/s11135-022-01544-0. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 36259076; PMCID: PMC9559165. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36259076/
Stein, M (2022) The End of Faculty Tenure and the Transformation of Higher Education, Inside Higher Ed. https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2022/04/25/declining-tenure-density-alarming-opinion
Stone GR. A Brief History of Academic Freedom in Who's Afraid of Academic Freedom?, edited by Akeel Bilgrami, and Jonathan R. Cole, Columbia University Press, 2015. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/templeuniv-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1912264.
United Nations, Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights (UNOHCHR) Global threats to freedom of expression arising from the conflict in Gaza (Report A/79/319), 2024. https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/thematic-reports/a79319-global-threats-freedom-expression-arising-conflict-gaza-report