A Country Fails with 35.5% – Academic Freedom and the Law in South Africa: International Compliance, Comparative Trends
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: This Article measures to what extent academic freedom as construed in terms of international human rights law, specifically UNESCO’s Recommendation concerning the Status of Higher-Education Teaching Personnel of 1997, is protected in South African law. It determines the elements of this right, operationalises these by way of 37 human rights-based indicators, and then assesses whether South Africa’s legal framework related to higher education and research adequately protects academic freedom and its structural safeguards, such as institutional autonomy, academic self-governance, and employment security, including tenure. The authors previously applied this scorecard to determine the strength of the protection of academic freedom in the law of European countries. The analysis for South Africa shows that, as in Europe and many countries of the global North, it is not primarily politically motivated ideological attacks by the state that threaten academic freedom. Rather, it is the utilitarian, economistic, and, in this sense, illiberal vision of higher education and research, reflected in law and in practice, that places academic freedom under pressure. As in many of these countries, market liberalism erodes academic freedom in South Africa. Additionally, ‘transformationism’ and the notion that universities should be development-oriented also threaten academic freedom here. This is not an argument against transformation, which is vital in South Africa with its Apartheid past. Transformation is necessary to address active and static forms of racism, sexism, and xenophobia within institutions, to realise academic freedom for all, and to modernise universities. The point, however, is that the stated illiberal vision obstructs both academic freedom and transformation. South African universities are increasingly experienced as authoritarian, human rights-free spaces. Remedying this situation will require a reassertion of the university’s truth-seeking (and communicating) role and, in addition, a commitment to transformation within the democratically (re)constituted university that preserves it as a long-term academic institution. Legislative reform must crucially underpin such a vision.
Authors: Klaus D. Beiter, Terence Karran
Institutions: North-West University, University of Lincoln
Language: English
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7169825916
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