Each year, the ledger of silenced voices grows longer — scholars imprisoned, university leaders assassinated, faculty dismissed for the words they chose. Scholars at Risk's 2026 report documents 382 attacks across 59 countries, a number that obscures a deeper truth: the nature of the assault on academic freedom is intensifying even where its frequency slightly ebbs. What is at stake is not merely the comfort of institutions, but the survival of the human practice of open inquiry — a practice that authoritarian states suppress through violence and that democracies are increasingly learning to e
Academic freedom under siege globally, with 382 documented attacks in past year
Wrongful imprisonment of academics in China and Russia; targeted assassinations of university leaders in Guatemala and Pakistan; suspension or firing of faculty members in the US and Canada.