Academic Freedom & the Role of Universities
Panelists:
Amna Khalid, Associate Professor in the Department of History, Carleton College
Jeffrey Sachs, Assistant Professor, Department of Politics, Acadia University
Musa Al-Gharbi, Assistant Professor of Journalism, Communication and (by courtesy) Sociology, Stony Brook University
Ramiro Álvarez Ugarte, Deputy Director, Centro de Estudios en Libertad de Expresión (CELE)
Moderator:
Sarah McLaughlin, Senior Scholar, Global Expression, Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
Amna Khalid is an Associate Professor in the Department of History at Carleton College, specializing in modern South Asian history, the history of medicine, and the global history of free expression. Growing up under a series of military dictatorships, Amna has a strong interest in issues relating to censorship and free expression. She speaks frequently on academic freedom, free speech and campus politics at colleges and universities as well as at professional conferences. She hosts a podcast and accompanying blog called "Banished," which explores censorship in the past and present.
Jeffrey Sachs is an assistant professor at Acadia University, where he specializes in academic freedom, education politics, and Middle Eastern law. Since 2021, he has been a research analyst and consultant for PEN America and has written widely on campus free speech issues in Canada and the United States.
Musa al-Gharbi is a sociologist in the School of Communication and Journalism at Stony Brook University and a research fellow with Heterodox Academy. His book, "We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions of a New Elite," is available now from Princeton University Press.
Ramiro Álvarez Ugarte is a senior researcher and deputy director at the Centro de Estudios en Libertad de Expresión (CELE) in the University of Palermo, in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He holds an LLM (2009) and a JSD (2022) from Columbia Law School (New York). Previously, he was a staff attorney at the Office of the Special Rapproteur on Freedom of Expression at the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights (2009-2011) and the Association for Civil Rights in Buenos Aires (2011-2014).
Sarah McLaughlin studies the relationship between authoritarian governments and global censorship, especially in the academic context. She is currently working on a book about transnational repression in higher education, Authoritarians in the Academy, due next year with Johns Hopkins University Press.