Academic democracy to strengthen academic freedom

Academic freedom is under threat around the world. To have a robust democracy, we need people who pursue truth and knowledge, both researchers and students. Forskerforbundet and Norsk studentorganisasjon (NSO) are campaigning fortronger protection for academic freedom, by putting it in the norwegian constitution. 

Part of our role as a university in our society is to ensure free and independent knowledge. Regardless of if the constitution will be changed, we need to ensure that this part of our role is as strong and robust as possible. This is how we can protect our democracy from the kind of dramatic events that are happening in other countries, but also from smaller-scale slow decline through repeated small interferences.

There is not as much protection as we would need if things went bad

We always like to assume that everyone has the best intentions. But the system must be robust in case there are ever people who end up in charge, somewhere, who do not mean well. This is happening in the US now, with for example Musk and DOGE causing immense damage. As the people campaigning for grunnlovfesting of academic freedom are pointing out, the way things work right now, there is not as much protection as we wouldneed if things really went bad.

This is true also in our university. For someone high up in the hierarchy, a small hiring comittee is easy to railroad, manipulate, compromise, or sideline. And once a compliant leader is in place, they can get other compliant leaders hired the same way. A compliant rector will hire compliant deans, who will hire compliant heads of department. The system now concentrates too much of this power in the hands of too few people who are too easy to influence from above or outside. 

So, what can we do, as a university, as researchers, students, and teachers, who do not have the power to change the constitution? We can choose the right leadership model. It doesn't matter who is a bit better at making ends meet or raising student satisfaction. None of that means anything if we do not teach, learn, or research the knowledge that is needed.

Democracy protects freedom

We need a leadership model that protects academic freedom. To make the system robust against future interference, accountability has to be in the right direction, to the people whose freedom needs to be protected. We do this by putting in place the same kind of robust system we have for holding governments accountable and protecting the people: democracy. That will allow us to vote out leaders who do not stand up for our freedom, rather than allowing them to hire more of their ilk.

We can stop it with one and prevent a cascade. The most robust system would be to have elected leaders on every level, so that each of them can stand against interference from outside or above, and protect researchers, students, and teachers.

The big picture: we need a robust leadership model for this post-truth time

This may be inconvenient for some of those in power, but that is precisely the point. People feel threatened by the genuine search for knowledge and truth, are not people that a university should be making life easy for. It's knowledge for a better world, not knowledge for a better election result or for a bigger profit margin. 

Many of us seem to have strong feelings about the current leadership model based on their own personal experiences. But this is bigger than the job we think our current crop of ansatte ledere have been doing. It's about protecting our university's role in our democratic society. 

Right now our university's leaders, regardless of how they got there, have a chance to change the leadership model and make our university better and more robust for the future.