Academic freedom refers to a set of freedoms including freedom of teaching, freedom of research, and freedom of expression, all of which enable the university to fulfill its missions. It is therefore closely linked to the role assigned to the university.

To better protect it, as attacks against education and higher education have multiplied in the United States in recent months, it is important to better understand its issues and therefore to revisit its history.

A science in perpetual motion

The university ideal first finds its source in the medieval universities of the 13th ^century  , which enjoyed a certain autonomy and freedom of organization from ecclesiastical power. But it was especially in the 19th ^century  , in Germany, that the modern idea of ​​the university was constructed, the one that continues to be a reference today.

It was described by Wilhelm von Humboldt, a Prussian linguist and high-ranking civil servant, in a short text published in 1809 (or 1810) on “the higher scientific establishments in Berlin” . In it, he defined several guiding principles that characterize this modern university.

The first concerns the central place given to “science” which must remain in perpetual movement. He writes thus: 

“It is a peculiarity of higher scientific institutions to always treat science as a problem that is not yet entirely solved, and to never abandon research as a result.”

Even today, research plays a crucial role in every university. The 1997 UNESCO Recommendation on Higher Education Teaching Personnel emphasizes:

“The exploration and application of new knowledge lies at the heart of the mandate of higher education institutions.”

The second principle is based on the importance of the link between teaching and research:

“The essence of these institutions therefore consists in connecting, from an internal point of view, objective science to subjective training.”

This is a major difference that is highlighted compared to secondary education which “only teaches ready-made and well-established knowledge.”

This is a characteristic that is still very much alive in universities, which are both a place of teaching and research. In France, academics are therefore referred to as “teacher-researchers.”

The third principle, closely linked to the previous one, is the importance given to students who, through their active presence in lessons, participate in the intellectual reflection of professors and push them to question their acquired knowledge. Humboldt thus notes that within higher scientific establishments,

“The relationship between the master and the students thus becomes completely different from what it was. He is not there for them, but all are there for science; his profession depends on their presence, and without it it could not be practiced with equal success.”

Conversely, students benefit from this academic purpose, which is not the search for useful data but the pursuit of reflective knowledge without a specific goal. This is the whole purpose of Bildung  ; an untranslatable concept that refers to a way of training oneself, thanks to an intimate relationship with knowledge, allowing access to a reflective vision of the world. This disinterested construction of knowledge in a desire to train individuals in free thought is always at the heart of university missions.

French law, for example, refers to “training in research and through research .” However, it must be admitted that utilitarian tendencies are gaining ground, including within universities, in a desire to train professionals ready to enter the “job market.”

The necessary independence of research

The fourth principle no longer concerns the internal organization of institutions, but their external relations with the State. Humboldt advocates a very limited role for the latter, which, while it must provide the necessary resources for research, must not treat higher scientific institutions like high schools, seeking to satisfy its own goals.

This is nothing other than claiming institutional autonomy, which UNESCO still upholds today:

“The full exercise of academic freedom and the fulfillment of the duties and responsibilities set out below presuppose the autonomy of higher education institutions.”

Although Humboldt describes a model of university with precision through these principles, he rarely mentions the question of freedoms. They are only clearly mentioned in one passage of the text where he indicates 

“Since these institutions can only achieve their goal if each of them stands as far as possible before the pure idea of ​​science, independence and freedom are principles that prevail in their sphere.”

Perhaps these few words are enough to say the essential: the tireless search for “scientific truth”, which fuels teachings and is fueled by them and cannot exist without independence and freedoms.

Freedom to learn and freedom to teach

Although Humboldt did not argue his views on freedoms within higher education institutions, his vision of the Berlin university led to the development of two liberal concepts: Lehrfreiheit and Lernfreiheit .

Lehrfreiheit , which is said to have been first used by Friedrich Christoph Dahlmann in 1835, refers to freedom of teaching. It is therefore a freedom granted to university teachers to allow them to freely decide on the content of their courses .

Lernfreiheit , the first occurrence of which is said to be in a text by Adolph Diesterweg published in 1836, could be translated as “freedom to learn. “ It is intended to grant students a certain freedom within the framework of their university curriculum. It is conceived in the Humboldtian model of university in which students play an active role in the construction of knowledge in movement and benefit from this position ( Bildung ).

Despite these theoretical writings on freedoms within universities, these had no tangible legal basis at the time. But it would not be long before they were enshrined at the highest level of the German hierarchy of norms. Indeed, in response to the arbitrary dismissal of professors, in particular that of seven of them from the University of Göttingen in 1837, including one of the Grimm brothers, the drafters of the Frankfurt Constitution of 1849 added a provision to the text recognizing that “science and its teaching are free.”

This Constitution was never implemented, but the Weimar Constitution of 1919 repeated this provision: Article 142 stated that “art, science and their teaching are free. The State grants them protection and contributes to their promotion.” Article 158 specified that “respect and protection must be ensured, even abroad, by international conventions, for the creations of German science, art and technology.”

The 1949 Constitution took up this Article 142, adding the reference to “research” ( Forschung ), which had been absent until then. Thus, the third paragraph of Article 5 of the German Basic Law still provides today that “art and science, research and teaching are free.”

It was inspired by this long German tradition that the founders of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) created the concept of ”  academic freedom  ” in 1915. Since 2000, the expression has been found in French in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, in Article 13:

“The arts and research are free. Academic freedom is respected.”

It has also been used, since the 2000s, by the European Court of Human Rights (for example, in the Sorguç v. Turkey judgment of 2009 ).

In France, it was not until 2020 that the law made reference to it. Since then, the second paragraph of Article L. 952-2 of the Education Code has stated that “academic freedoms are the guarantee of excellence in French higher education and research.”

Author Bio: Camille Fernandes is a Lecturer in Public Law, member of the CRJFC at the Marie and Louis Pasteur University (UMLP)

Camille Fernandes thanks Arnauld Leclerc, professor of political science at Nantes University, for his valuable reading advice and explanations on Humboldtian thought.