Democratic Knowledge under Attack: Trump vs. Academic Freedom | Online Discussion

Zoom Link | 65728464869

100 days into the second Trump administration, a panel of scholars based in the US and Germany will shed light on the assault on higher education and what this means for students, professors and the public alike. The discussion will examine how and why aggressive state intervention is impacting academic fields and institutions, freedom of research, international collaboration, and ultimately the public knowledge landscape and perceptions of social justice.

From scrutinizing course content and auditing scholars’ social media to restricting research themes, funding, and academic mobility, the state is tightening its grip on intellectual inquiry and structures of academic scrutiny and knowledge production. Some methods are crude – such as keyword bans turning “women” and “colonialism” into research taboos – while others fit a broader Trumpist strategy of retreating from global engagement, such as cutting USAID funding removing hundreds of millions of dollars and hundreds of staff from universities.

This online panel – with Astrid Böger (Hamburg), John Connelly (Berkeley), Nicole Hodges Persley (Kansas), and Jan Kubik (Rutgers) – will discuss what it is like working at or collaborating with universities targeted by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) for supposed “race-exclusionary practices” and “racial preferences and stereotypes in education.” Drawing parallels to past and present authoritarian regimes and embedding current dynamics in the history of US higher education and research, the conversation will illuminate the consequences for individuals and institutions, students, faculty, and staff, and the future of international collaboration and democratic knowledge production.

Panelists:

• Astrid Böger | University of Hamburg | Professor of American Studies
• John Connelly | University of California, Berkeley | Sidney Hellman Ehrman Professor of European History 
• Nicole Hodges Persley | University of Kansas | Vice Provost of Community Impact and Professor of American Studies and African and African American Studies
• Jan Kubik | Rutgers University | Distinguished Professor of Comparative Politics

Chairs:

• Ulf Brunnbauer | Leibniz Institute for East and Southeast European Studies (IOS), Regensburg | Director & Professor of Southeast and East European History
• Birgit Hebel-Bauridl | University of Regensburg |  Managing Director of the Regensburg European American Forum (REAF)