Smolny Beyond Borders, Gagarin Center at Bard College, The Center for Comparative Research on Democracy (CCRD) at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin Presents

Contemporary Threats to Academic Freedom and Democracy: Education, Journalism and Human Rights

This conference takes as its starting point the spectacular consolidation of illiberal, autocratic power over the past decade through attacks on civil society institutions. Higher education, journalism, and human rights-related NGOs have all come under threat. Putin’s regime in Russia provides one model for such consolidation, which has impacted and in turn been influenced by right-wing governments in Hungary, Turkey, the United States, and beyond. We explore how such regimes have focused on universities and academic freedom in general–transforming or forcing into exile institutions deemed critical of the state and narrowing the space for research, teaching and learning. Why has this happened? With what tactics and with what effects? What do these attacks say about the fundamental relationship between academic freedom and the possibility and practice of democracy?

Attacks on higher education have proceeded in parallel with attempts to constrain media freedom and pro-democracy and human rights grassroots and non-governmental organizations. They also take place within a changing media and activism ecosystem more generally. In this situation, traditional methods of reporting on and protesting against such violations have proven difficult. We also track this landscape and the creative responses being shaped and tested within it. How can human rights work remain relevant as it is delegitimized as a field and as critical voices are excluded from mainstream media outlets? What options are there for exposing attacks and impacting public opinion? What new approaches within or alignments between human rights, journalism and higher education are needed, and how might these protect or rebuild capacities for critical thinking and other basic democratic competencies in the current moment?

Speakers include: Mary Lawlor (UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders); Jennifer Gaspar (Araminta); Mariana Katzarova (UN Special Rapporteur on Russia); Ilya Venyavkin (Kronika), Fred Abrahams (Aryeh Neier Center for Justice at Bard College Berlin); Tuba Inal Cekic (Off University), Margee Ensign (AltLiberalArts), Philip Fedchin (Smolny Beyond Borders); Oleksander Shtokvych (Invisible University for Ukraine/Central European University);

May 13: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Jacob-und-Wilhelm-Grimm-Zentrum Geschwister-Scholl-Straße 1/3, 10117 Berlin;
May 14: Bard College Berlin Julie Johnson Kidd Hall Waldstraße 15, 13156 Berlin

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Time: 9:30 am – 6:30 pm CET/GMT+1

Location: May 13: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Jacob-und-Wilhelm-Grimm-Zentrum Geschwister-Scholl-Straße 1/3, 10117 Berlin; May 14: Bard College Berlin Julie