Academic Freedom Besieged: Whose Academy? (And Who Decides?)—NIAS Opening of the Academic Year 2025-2026, keynote by Claudine Gay

What is the role of universities and academic research institutions in liberal democracies? How is this role best served? And who decides on this ‘what’ and ‘how’?

After a welcome and introduction by NIAS Director Professor Jan Willem Duyvendak, Professor Claudine Gay will reflect on the principles that are critical to the strength and vitality of academic life: openness, inclusion, and independence. In a time of rising political and economic pressures on universities, her keynote will address efforts to refashion universities as spaces where dissent is suppressed, knowledge is pursued only within the framework of ideology, and the hard-won commitments to access achieved over recent decades are being undone. Gay will argue that the Trump agenda and the threat it poses to American higher education are clear, but that the internal pressures that work in concert with this agenda are less understood—and that among these, the fraught economics of higher education and the culture of philanthropy stand out.

Following Professor Gay’s address, in conversation with Marcia Luyten, Professor of Ethics of Institutions Ingrid Robeyns will turn to the political and economic pressures at work on and within the Dutch science landscape, and their wanted and unwanted, foreseen and unforeseen consequences. After a poetry reading by renowned Dutch poet (and NIAS alumn) Maria Barnas, a panel further joined by Professor of Administration of Justice and Legal Philosophy Jonathan Soeharno and editor-in-chief of Dutch daily newspaper Trouw Wendelmoet Boersema will explore the respective missions and vulnerabilities of the three ‘verifying and authenticating institutions’ of liberal democracy (the academy, the judiciary and the press), what guardrails they need most, and how they might ally to get and keep those in place.

👉 Please register below. There are a limited number of places, so be sure to reserve yours soon. Note that the venue may change if additional capacity is needed, so we kindly ask you to stay tuned for updates.