Debate from ROAPE Volume 32 Number 106
Academic Freedom & Crisis of Neoliberalism: Some Cautions

This article concerns academic freedom in the context of the war on terror. There are two concepts of academic freedom current in the field that need to be distinguished: (a) the neoliberal notion of academic freedom which takes knowledge to be a commodity, education as a service to be privatised and academic freedom the ability to market knowledge and education services without governmental regulation; (b) the ‘commoner’ notion of academic freedom which takes knowledge as a common resource for all, education as a public good, and academic freedom as the enlarging of the capacity of all to access and produce knowledge.