Increasing Authoritarianism in Russia Sparks Debate on Academic Freedom There, Dubrovsky Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, August 9 – Unlike many civil rights, there is no internatinally accepted position on the nature and limits of academic freedom. Instead, some say it should be limited to the freedom to do research and to teach, while others argue that it should involve the right to take part in public political debates.

            Until very recently, Dmitry Dubrovsky, an instructor at Moscow’s Higher School of Economics and a member of St. Petersburg’s Human Rights Council, says, Russia has not gotten involved in such debates; but the increasing authoritarianism of the Russian government is now changing that (russian.eurasianet.org/академическая-свобода-в-россии-как-ее-понимать).

            There was no serious discussion of this issue in Soviet times for understandable reasons; but until very recently, there hasn’t been one in post-Soviet Russia either, something the scholar-activist says is less understandable. The Soviet authorities imposed harsh limits on research and teaching and opposed any public stance by scholars on issues at odds with those of the regime.

            With the demise of the Soviet Union, the government initially got out of the business of imposing a single ideological matrix within which scholars must act. But that didn’t end fights within the academy between the supporters of various ideological positions, especially between Westernizers and “Orthodox patriots.”

            Sometimes as in the cases of a fight between the two at St. Petersburg’s State University, the broader public got involved, leading to a draw rather than the complete victory of one side or the other. But despite that, Dubrovsky says, there was no public discussion of academic freedom and its limits as such.

            The Russian government stands clearly on the side of those who see academic freedom as being about research and teaching but not about public activities by university staff. The Russian Constitution and the 1996 law on higher education make that abundantly clear; but as the Kremlin has become more repressive, faculty are speaking out – and the debate joined.

            Regime actions have sharply reduced the autonomy of higher educational institutions and made their rectors executors of state policy. Moreover, the powers have used charged of links with “’foreign agents’” a means of imposing tighter control; and now they are in some cases expelling students and disciplining faculty for public statements.

            As a result, a real debate has been joined in the academy.  Dubrovsky says that his Center for Independent Sociological Research has surveyed faculty members about how they define academic freedom and found that many Russian scholars accept the classical understanding while others call for a more expansive vision.

            That so many accept the notion that academic freedom extends only to research and teaching means that the regime has a base on which to move against those with a broader view. But the existence of the other view means that the regime will face increasingly serious problems if it simply tries to drive scholars back into the academy completely.

            At the very least, the scholar-activist suggests, given the nature of scholarly discourse, a debate has been joined and is set to expand.