Academic Freedom and the Shadow of authoritarianism: Progress and Challenges in Brazil

• In Event: Attacks to Academic Freedom in the context of Persisting Inequalities

Proposal

This paper will provide context about how academic freedom has been constructed and understood within the Brazilian higher education context and provide an overview of recent challenges and threats to what has historically been a core component of both Brazilian public and private higher education governance, education, and scholarship. Influenced by the 1918 Cordoba Reforms in Argentina, academic freedom and institutional autonomy have been central to the Brazilian higher education sector - particularly the nation’s public institutions. At critical junctures, most notably during the military dictatorship (1964-1985) and recent administration of President Jair Bolsonaro, attempts have been made to erode the autonomy and freedom of public institutions that rely on federal resources and support. The Bolsonaro administration, in particular, sought to significantly reconstruct the purpose of both basic and higher education through their Education without Party movement and reductions in federal funding for public instructions, claiming that the country’s public universities foment “cultural Marxism” and “gender ideology.” Academic freedom suffered significant setbacks during this period, but was not irreparably transformed. Nevertheless, the Bolsonaro administration and the authoritarian decades of military rule demonstrated the limits and potential for erosion of academic freedom in Brazil. This paper will explore these issues from a historical and contemporary perspective, while also discussing how the growth of the private for-profit higher education sector is changing the very nature of education in a context with such an established ideal of academic freedom within teaching, scholarship, and extension.

Author

• Anthony Lewis Wagner, New York University