Academic freedom under quiet siege
Imagine a regional state university where a faculty committee spends months designing a new interdisciplinary course on environmental governance. The syllabus is solid. It is grounded in science, policy analysis and community engagement, and it passes the Academic Council without controversy.
However, when it reaches the Board of Regents, the proposal is neither rejected nor approved. It is simply deferred, sent back with the most popular remark, “for further study.” It is quietly left to languish. No written objections have been issued and no academic deficiencies have been identified.
While not explicitly stated, the message is understood. The course touches issues that potentially unsettle powerful interests. The committee then revises the syllabus, softens its language and removes the most critical case studies. Soon after, the course is approved. While no one calls this censorship, something fundamental has been lost.
This scenario is hypothetical, yet familiar. It mirrors a pattern that many faculty members in State Universities and Colleges (SUCs) quietly recognize. That academic freedom is not eroded by explicit orders but by governance arrangements that reward caution and penalize risk. In such a case, the danger lies not in what is openly prohibited but in what gradually becomes inconvenient to pursue.
Our previous commentary mainly tackles the politicization of Boards of Regents (BORs) in SUCs and argues that this has created an environment in which academic judgment is routinely filtered through political calculation (Anito et al., 2025).
At its core, Republic Act 8292 affirms academic freedom and institutional autonomy. However, it also vests extensive authority in governing boards (i.e. Board of Regents) that include political actors and politically aligned appointees.
This design does not necessarily require regents to interfere directly in academic affairs. It merely gives them sufficient leverage over budgets, leadership, and approvals to shape outcomes indirectly. Over time, this influence has become normalized and the consequences are visible across core university functions.
In curriculum development, courses that critically engage with governance, inequality, environmental accountability, indigenous rights, or local political economies often encounter unexplained delays or repeated revisions.
In most cases, scrutiny and objections are rarely academic in nature but are unspoken concerns about “sensitivity,” “timing,” or “alignment.” Regrettably, academic councils learn to anticipate these concerns and adjust accordingly. Risk is managed not through rigorous debate, but through pre-emptive dilution.
In research and development, research agendas are similarly affected. While faculty members are not explicitly instructed to stop pursuing difficult and controversial areas; they are subtly guided toward safer ones.
Funding priorities, endorsements and institutional recognition tend to favor projects that affirm prevailing narratives or those that promise politically palatable outcomes. In this case, research that critically examines policy failures or local power structures becomes harder to support, not because it lacks merit, but because it generally invites discomfort. Consequently, what emerges is a system of selective encouragement, where some inquiries flourish and others quietly fade.
Extension work, often celebrated as the university’s most public-facing mission, is likewise especially vulnerable. In politicized SUC settings, community engagement risks becoming instrumentalized, one that is aligned with administrative or political programs rather than grounded in independent needs assessment. Faculty and students quickly learn which partnerships are welcomed and which are discouraged. Extension work then shifts from critical engagement to performative compliance.
The last and perhaps the most damaging effect is cultural. When appointments, promotions, research approvals, and administrative opportunities pass through governance structures perceived as politically inflected, faculty behavior adapts.
Junior academics, in particular, learn caution early. Open critique becomes risky and silence becomes strategic. Academic freedom remains formally intact, but it is exercised selectively. And this is not fear that is imposed but rather restraint that is internalized through experience.
Academic freedom cannot be protected by legal declarations alone. Freedom without autonomy is fragile. When final authority over leadership, finances, and strategic direction in SUCs is susceptible to political influence, academic freedom becomes conditional. It may exist on paper but not in practice. It mimics a form of procedural freedom where faculty may speak, teach, and research, provided they remain within unstated boundaries.
What is particularly disturbing about this context is that it rarely triggers public alarm. There are no banned books to protest, no lectures abruptly canceled. The erosion is quiet, incremental, and therefore convenient to deny. Yet its effects are cumulative. Universities become more cautious, less critical, and ultimately less useful to society.
This issue matters far beyond campus walls. Universities play a crucial role in a democratic society precisely because they are expected to question assumptions, interrogate power and generate knowledge that may be inconvenient to those in authority.
When academic freedom weakens, policy research becomes timid, innovation favors safety over insight and regional issues remain under-examined. The public loses an independent source of analysis and critique.
The solution does not lie in pretending that politics can be removed from public universities. That is neither realistic nor desirable. What is required is governance reform that clearly insulates academic decision-making from partisan interests.
Boards of Regents must be restructured so that political actors do not exercise disproportionate influence over academic life. The primacy of faculty-led bodies in academic matters must be respected in practice, not merely affirmed in policy statements. Transparency, while important, is insufficient if power remains concentrated in ways that invite quiet interference.
The defense of academic freedom is inseparable from the reform of governance. A system that teaches its scholars to self-censor is not one that lacks talent or commitment; it is one that has learned the costs of honesty.
Academic freedom does not disappear when universities are censored. It disappears when they learn to censor themselves. And that, more than any overt attack, is the quiet siege our higher education system can no longer afford to ignore.
Jovito C Anito Jr ([email protected]) is an associate professor at Jose Rizal Memorial State University. Arlyne C. Marasigan ([email protected]) is a professor at the College of Advanced Studies (CAS) and a fellow at the Educational Policy Research and Development Office (EPRDO). Levi E. Elipane ([email protected]) is a professor and deputy dean of CAS. The views expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Jose Rizal Memorial State University and the Philippine Normal University.
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