The Question of Academic Freedom and the Unequal Capacity to Exercise It
Vedika Rahi | 27 August 2026 | India Today NE
Academic freedom is generally discussed in terms of what scholars are free to do: whether they can pursue controversial research, teach disputed ideas, publish findings that challenge powerful interests, or express views without fear of illegitimate institutional interference. These questions are essential, but they begin from an assumption that deserves greater scrutiny: that the scholar whose freedom we are concerned with already possesses the institutional capacity to exercise it. Yet, the said capacity is far from equally distributed. To elucidate, let’s consider two researchers who formally possess the same freedom to pursue an intellectually controversial question. One has permanent employment with an established reputation, secure funding and institutional support, while the other works on a temporary contract with an uncertain source of funding or relies upon institutional sponsorship for immigration status. So, while their formal freedom may be similar, nevertheless, their practical ability to make use of it is not. This distinction, hence, points to the fact that academic freedom has a material dimension that is too casually treated as secondary to its intellectual one.
Academic freedom is, thus, generally understood as a protected principle: a scholar should be able to research, teach, publish, and communicate without illegitimate interference. This article asks whether that understanding is sufficient and tries to understand academic freedom as a lived capacity - one whose actual exercise depends upon material resources, institutional position, professional security, and mobility. The distinction matters because formally similar freedoms can have profoundly unequal practical value.