Surveillance, disciplinary actions and attacks on academic freedom and Brazilian education
Attacks on academic freedom have become increasingly frequent, especially among countries currently suffering from anti-democratic crises. Its consequences are visible not only in the educational environment, but in society as a whole:
THEY SHRINK EVERYONE’S SPACE TO THINK, QUESTION, AND SHARE IDEAS FREELY AND SAFELY, IMPAIRING PUBLIC DISCOURSE AND DAMAGING SOCIAL, POLITICAL, CULTURAL, AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT”
(Scholars at risk, Free to Think, 2019, p.2)
Recent indexes and studies have pointed to worsening conditions of academic freedom over higher education in Brazil. The Academic Freedom Index, produced by the Global Public Privacy Institute and published in March 2020, classified Brazil in ‘group C’ on the world scale, which goes from ‘A’ to ‘E’. In the study, Brazil is the only South American country in this category, with the sole exception of Venezuela, which was in group ‘D’. Another report, produced by Scholars at Risk and published in November 2019 (Free to Think), also drew attention to the Brazilian situation by pointing out several attacks on higher education, among clashes on campus, politically motivated coercions, and threats of institutional violation, putting the very notion of university autonomy at risk. Since then, these trends have been compounded by other factors, such as budget cuts, dirigisme in the appointment of university rectors and lack of credibility of academic work.
Basic education has also been a target of interference and is especially affected in regimes with authoritarian tendencies. In Brazil, this has taken the form of agendas such as the anti-gender movement in schools, with censorship practices; the expansion of civic-military schools; and proposals to alter the content of textbooks.
Here are examples of attacks on academic freedom that reflect these authoritarian tendencies in the current Brazilian scenario.
Read more about it here [1] [2]. Also read more about interventions in the education and the war on leftist ideology here [find out here] [find out here].
Read more about it here – in Portuguese [find out here]
Read more about it here – in Portuguese [find out here]. Read more about changes in the Ministery of Education and anti-leftist agenda here [1] [2] [3]
Read more about it here – in Portuguese [find out here]. Read more about the Foreign Affairs Minister, Ernesto Araújo [1] [2] [3]
Read more about it here [1]
Read about it here – in Portuguese [find out here]. Read more about budget cuts in public Federal Universities here [1] [2] [3]