The President of Ireland, Michael D Higgins, urged vigilance in the face of global challenges to the “intrinsic fragility” of academic freedom, in an event in Trinity this morning highlighting the threats facing academics in the world today.
The event, organised by Scholars at Risk Ireland and Universities Ireland, saw Higgins highlight the ongoing and historical threats facing universities by those who feel challenged by the idea of academic freedom.
Echoing the event’s title, “Ideas are not Crimes”, Higgins warned that “it isn’t a great time for the free flow of ideas”, despite such a concept being “fundamental to the shaping of the public discourse”.
In an address that referenced a range of Enlightenment thinkers and modern philosophers, Higgins praised the value of organisations like Scholars at Risk. Their work, he said, “never fails to give way to a cross-fertilisation of ideas and a new flourishing of knowledge”.
The Scholars at Risk Network in Ireland has members across the country including Trinity, University College Dublin (UCD), NUI Galway, NUI Maynooth, Queen’s University Belfast and Dublin City University (DCU) and is part of a wider network of over 450 colleges and universities across 40 countries that work to protect and support academics facing threats and persecution.
Society must remember, Higgins warned, that academic freedom must constantly be protected. “There isn’t any perfect moment that can’t be dislodged”, he said.
Speaking at the launch, Provost Patrick Prendergast praised the appropriateness of Higgins giving the opening address. Higgins, he said, had an outstanding record of working to defend human rights across the world, in countries such as Iraq, Cambodia and Somalia. His, Prendergast said, is “a voice that must be listened to and heeded”.
The event aims to draw attention to the increased pressures facing academics in a number of countries, including Syria, Iran, Pakistan and Turkey. This is the 12th event the Irish branch of Scholars at Risk has held since it was formed in 2009.
The European Director of Scholars at Risk, Sinead O’Gorman, also spoke at the event. Scholars at Risk, she said, “works to protect scholars because they are at the frontline of protecting the space for thought in society”.
Academics, she said, “are targeted by those who don’t like answering questions”. She warned of the threats facing academics around the world, including the publicised attacks on university staff in Turkey. A recent report published by Scholars at risk recorded 158 reported attacks across 35 countries on “higher education communities” in the last 16 months across.
She also pointed to the organisation’s “wait and see attitude” towards the incoming Donald Trump presidency, and whether his anti-intellectual sentiment might impact on university staff.
A number of unions in Ireland have issued repeated calls in recent months for the Irish government to support academics in Turkey. In a letter published on their website on November 22nd, the General Secretary of the Irish Federation of University Teachers (IFUT), Mike Jennings, warned of the “unfounded and illicit dismissals, investigations, prosecutions and arrests” currently experienced by academics in the country.
