Today the concept of academic freedom may seem obvious to Americans. But the roots of academic freedom, which can be traced back to medieval European universities, were never certain. Back then, when scholars demanded autonomy from Church and state, they were often rebuked—or worse.

What began as a slow-burning fuse eventually led to the concept of the modern research university a few centuries later, found in the writing of the English philosopher Francis Bacon and his 1627 novel, New Atlantis. There, Bacon envisioned a college called Salomon’s House, in which scientists and others worked in an atmosphere of generosity and freethinking. This college came to be known as “the noblest foundation (as we think) that ever was upon the earth; and the lantern of this kingdom,” as the Governor of Bacon’s fictional utopia put it. “It is dedicated to the study of the works and creatures of God.”

Twelve of the resident fellows, called “merchants of light,” sailed to foreign countries to bring back books and knowledge from other lands. Several devised experiments in both the “mechanical arts” and the “liberal sciences,” eventually creating such technologies as microscopes and hearing aids. Invention flourished in an ethos of imagination and unfettered investigation. Bacon was a forerunner of the Enlightenment. After centuries of intellectual progress, Americans must face a terrible question: Are we now descending from light into dark?

Since April 22, more than 500 leaders of America’s colleges, universities, and scholarly societies have signed a statement protesting the unprecedented interference of the Trump administration into higher education, interference that included external oversight of admissions criteria, faculty hiring, accreditation, ideological capture, and, in some cases, curriculum. As the statement says, higher education in America is open to constructive reform. However, “we must oppose undue government intrusion in the lives of those who learn, live, and work on our campuses.”

Especially targeted by the administration have been international students.

At my university, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, at least nine members of our community—students, recent graduates, and postdocs—have had their visas and immigration status unexpectedly revoked. MIT’s president, Sally Kornbluth, recently sent a letter to our community, part of which read:

“To live up to our great mission, MIT is driven to pursue the highest standards of intellectual and creative excellence. That means we are, and must be, in the business of attracting and supporting exceptionally talented people, the kind of people with the drive, skill and daring to see, discover and invent things no one else can. To find those rare people, we open ourselves to talent from every corner of the United States and from around the globe.” In the past, MIT and the many other institutions of higher learning in America have been Bacon’s “merchants of light.”

Both tangible and intangible benefits flow from academic freedom. First, the tangible. The business world should be alarmed by the proposed jamming of the greatest engine of invention, innovation, and economic prosperity in our nation. To name just a few examples: The internet, in the form of the ARPANET, was developed by researchers at UCLA, Stanford, and MIT under the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in the late 1960s and ’70s. Key concepts and materials for lithium-ion batteries were developed at the University of Texas and the University of Oxford. The first artificial heart was developed by Robert Jarvik and colleagues at the University of Utah. Google originated as a research project by Larry Page and Sergey Brin at Stanford. Natural-language processing, neural networks, and deep learning—all fundamental parts of AI—came out of research at MIT, Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, and the University of Toronto. Pivotal work in CRISPR gene editing was done by Jennifer Doudna at UC Berkeley. (She received the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for this work.) Many other technological inventions, although not directly produced in our universities, were nurtured by the training and knowledge gained in them: computers, vaccines, smartphones, social-media platforms, Global Positioning System (GPS), insulin synthesis, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), lasers.

Of course, the intellectual and creative freedom in America has enabled great productivity far beyond the precincts of science and technology. Exemplars include William James in philosophy and psychology, Toni Morrison in literature, Noam Chomsky in linguistics and cognitive science, Hannah Arendt in political theory, Martha Nussbaum in law and ethics, Margaret Mead in anthropology, W. E. B. Du Bois in sociology, John Rawls in political philosophy, Susan Sontag in cultural criticism, John Dewey in philosophy and education, and many, many more.

Our country, a relatively young country but a country weaned on freedom dating back to the American Revolution of 1775, has helped build the modern world, has helped human beings reach their fullest capacity and creativity. Academic freedom is what has made America great.

By contrast, invention has been suffocated in authoritarian countries with choke holds on academic freedom. In China, despite major investments in research and higher education, topics such as political reform, Tiananmen, and human rights are taboo. These restrictions have limited open inquiry in the social sciences and humanities. In Iran, restrictions on gender studies, religious critique, and internet freedom have weakened its academic institutions and discouraged global collaboration. In Russia, the crackdown on academic freedom since 2010 has driven out many independent thinkers and scientists, weakening innovation and policy critiques. Talented academics and researchers frequently leave for countries with more freedom, taking their expertise and innovation potential with them, as illustrated recently by the very public departure of the Yale University professor Jason Stanley, who is leaving the U.S. for Canada.

Where restrictions have been lifted, flowers bloom. South Korea was a military dictatorship up to the 1980s, and then became a democracy. In the authoritarian era, universities were tightly controlled, with crackdowns on student protests and censorship in curricula. After the removal of these restrictions, South Korea quickly became a global leader in technology and innovation, home to companies including Samsung and LG. Taiwan transitioned from martial law under the Kuomintang to a liberal democracy in the 1990s. The humanities and social sciences, previously constrained by anti-communist ideology, expanded significantly. Taiwan developed a strong knowledge economy, with competitive universities and thriving biotech and electronics industries. In particular, Taiwan is the home of the world’s leading semiconductor foundry, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing.

What exactly is academic freedom? It is the freedom to express and debate ideas without fear of censorship or reprisal. It is the freedom to explore. It is the freedom to let the imagination wander. It is the freedom to exchange knowledge with colleagues and others. It is the freedom to question authority and received wisdom. It is the freedom to test ideas against experiment and to reject those ideas that fail the test. It is the freedom to be honest, even if that honesty challenges prevailing views. It is the freedom to be one’s true self.

Academic freedom is the oxygen and the light of higher education. Growing things need both. Aren’t colleges and universities the nurseries of faculty, students, and their surrounding society? We need air. Instinctively, we seek light, just as some plants will change their pattern of growth in order to receive the sunlight needed for growth. It’s called phototropism. The petals of sunflowers actually track the movement of the sun throughout the day, changing their direction to point toward the sun.

I have served on the faculties of several universities in America and visited a hundred more. And I have felt intellectually safe in all of them. More than safe, I have felt encouraged to express myself and to listen and debate and question. The ethos of academic freedom is subtle. It is a kind of liberation, a buoyancy of the spirit, a nourishment of the mind. It is a basking in the light.

Academic freedom is the greatest lesson we can give to our students. Our young people are shaping the future. Do we want them to be afraid to express their ideas? Do we want them to be afraid to explore, to invent, to challenge the status quo? Do we want them to be afraid of being who they are?

We set examples for our young people and students, moral as well as intellectual. Do we want them to see us restrict what we teach because of the rules imposed by some outside authority? Do we want them to see us hide evidence that challenges a prevailing viewpoint? Do we want them to see us deny admission to other qualified students because of quotas or ideological litmus tests or country of origin? Do we want them to see us conform to outside decrees that undermine our values? Do we want them to see us prioritize money above all other things? Do we want them to see us as cowards, lacking the courage to stand behind our values and convictions?

The surrender of academic freedom in America and, in fact, freedom of all kinds may happen gradually, little by little. First with the disproportionate power of money and the wealthy who have it, then with attacks on the free press, the control of information, the weakening of checks and balances, the suppression of dissent, the surveillance of the population, and finally the normalization of repression. In George Orwell’s novel 1984, a superstate called Oceania is ruled by a dictator called Big Brother, who is supported by his personality cult and the Thought Police. The protagonist of the novel, Winston Smith, works for the state, at the Ministry of Truth, but he secretly hates the ruling regime. He joins what he thinks is a resistance group called the Brotherhood but which turns out to be part of the state apparatus. Smith is then arrested and subjected to months of brainwashing. Eventually, he is released and comes to believe that he loves Big Brother after all. This is what happens when darkness replaces light, when the freedom to think, dream, and invent is squashed. We cannot let that happen to us in America.

*Illustration Sources: The Naturalist / Getty; mikroman6 / Getty; Huizeng Hu / Getty.

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