Increasing?attacks on higher education worldwide are threatening the foundations of democratic countries, according to a new report from Scholars at Risk (SAR).

Free to Think 2025, published on 1 October, documents 395 attacks against scholars, students and institutions in 49 countries and territories between 1 July 2024 and 30 June 2025.

While violent repression persists in authoritarian contexts, the report highlights?a troubling surge of incidents in historically liberal democracies, including the US.

¡°National leaders have systematically attacked the higher education sector¡¯s ability to foster independent thought and critique power,¡± said Robert Quinn, SAR¡¯s executive director.

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¡°From Afghanistan to Serbia to the United States, state leaders have cracked down on student and faculty expression, banned the study of disfavoured topics, and targeted individual scholars and students for what they teach, study, or say.¡±

The report singles out?actions by the US government under President Donald Trump¡¯s second administration?as ¡°unprecedented¡±.

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Measures taken since January 2025 include?cancelling research grants on ideological grounds, banning equity-related research and teaching, slashing research budgets and personnel and transferring grant evaluations from experts to political appointees.

Authorities also attempted to detain and deport non-citizen scholars without due process.

¡°Recent actions by the United States government to put pressure on higher education are unprecedented. They mark the first time a research and innovation superpower has voluntarily dismantled the infrastructure underpinning its global leadership,¡± Quinn said.

¡°These actions also undermine American democracy. Universities are incubators of democratic values, skills, and discourse. That¡¯s why they are among the first targets of attack in places experiencing democratic decline.¡±

SAR¡¯s monitoring data show that incidents in the US increased sharply in recent years ¨C from 15 to 20 annually before 2023 to more than 80 in 2024. In the first half of 2025 alone, more than 40 attacks were recorded.

The report also details violent?repression of student movements in several countries.

In Bangladesh, nationwide protests against a quota system for government jobs were met with ¡°brutal, systematic repression¡± that left up to 1,400 people dead, according to the UN human rights office, and forced the resignation of the prime minister.

In Pakistan, security forces targeted Baloch student activists with repeated abductions, while in Serbia the government threatened to defund universities and withheld faculty salaries after staff backed student protests against corruption.

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In some cases universities themselves have also restricted dissent. In India, institutions imposed blanket bans on demonstrations deemed ¡°anti-establishment¡±, echoing similar measures in the US following campus protests over the Israel-Hamas conflict in 2024.

The findings come after the Academic Freedom Index 2025 recorded significant declines in 36 of 179 countries, including Germany, India, Ukraine and the US.

Ten states, among them Afghanistan, Iran and?Turkey, are now rated as having ¡°completely restricted¡± academic freedom.

Clare Robinson, SAR¡¯s advocacy director, argued that the current moment is both dangerous and potentially galvanising.

¡°While it¡¯s true that higher education around the world is under grave threat, the current moment is also an opportunity for the global academic community to come together and build solidarity,¡± she said.

Free to Think 2025 urges higher education leaders and governments to act on three fronts, including better communicating the public value of academic freedom, rejecting isolationism by supporting peers across borders and securing binding legal protections based on the Principles for Implementing the Right to Academic Freedom, published in 2024.

SAR frames the attacks not only as assaults on individual scholars but as existential threats to free societies.

¡°Attacks on higher education not only imperil the lives, careers and well-being of scholars and students, they chip away at the foundations of a free society,¡± Quinn warned.

¡°They must be addressed by an international community of higher education leaders, government officials and intergovernmental bodies.¡±

The report concludes that universities are essential to democratic resilience. By undermining them, governments risk eroding the very institutions that sustain informed debate, innovation and civic engagement, it says.

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tash.mosheim@timeshighereducation.com