Protect the Global Ecosystem of Free Thought!

THIS ARTICLE WAS PUBLISHED IN THE NATIONAL NEWSPAPER POLITIKEN IN DENMARK 2ND OF APRIL 2025

Protect the Global Ecosystem of Free Thought!

By the Board of the Movement for a Free Academia, branch in Denmark.

“Universities do not seek knowledge and truth. They seek deceit and lies. And it’s time to be honest about that fact. […] Professors are the enemy!”
The speech concludes to roaring applause at a national conservative conference in November 2021, where current U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance has just thundered against academia.
The words—and the consequences they foreshadowed, once felt like a distant nightmare—are now unfolding before our very eyes. Our colleagues in the U.S. are afraid; some fear not just for their careers or research, but for their personal safety.

In these months, an unprecedented political offensive is sweeping across American universities. During the Trump administration’s second term, we now witness a systematic dismantling of support for research in climate, gender, diversity, and health. Alongside this is a systematic undermining of university autonomy and funding, damaging all areas of research regardless of topic. Censorship, political control, and the removal of data from public databases have become everyday occurrences. Hundreds of researchers have been fired without warning—often simply because their work contains words or concepts the government wants erased from public consciousness.
The country that once led the world in research is now moving toward a state where science is only tolerated if it confirms a politically preferred reality.

Academic freedom—one of the pillars of any enlightened democracy—is in free fall in what used to be the world’s leading knowledge nation. And we in Europe, Denmark, and the Nordic region must ask ourselves:
What do we do when free research and critical thinking are threatened not just locally but globally?
How do we ensure the global house of ideas doesn’t collapse?
How can we actively support those who, in these times, carry the torch of free thought under increasingly difficult conditions?

This isn’t the first time the global research ecosystem has been threatened. In the 1930s, during the rise of fascism and antisemitism in Europe, countless Jewish and politically persecuted researchers were forced to flee their home countries. At that time, the U.S. became a sanctuary for intellectuals—among them Nobel laureates like Albert Einstein, Hans Krebs, Ernst Chain, and Bernard Katz, as well as the thinkers of the Frankfurt School: Adorno, Horkheimer, and Marcuse.
These exiled scholars not only shaped the intellectual and scientific history of the 20th century—they rebuilt it. They brought not just knowledge, but experience with resistance, doubt, and free thought in an unfree world.

It’s important to remember that this intellectual exile movement not only survived—it thrived in new surroundings. The American university system was strengthened and transformed by their arrival, and their influence can still be felt today—both within academia and in society at large.
In the postwar period, many of their ideas returned to Europe. Today, the roles are reversed. It is in the U.S. that free research is now under pressure. And it is here in Europe that we must repeat the gesture we once received—offering protection not just out of solidarity, but because free thought is global, and we all suffer when it is suppressed in one place.

What is unfolding before our eyes is hard to grasp—but must be grasped, because history has shown us that such attacks on academic and free speech are often only the first steps toward deeper, more dangerous crackdowns on free thinkers.

The Trump administration has deleted health and climate data from federal websites such as the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), NIH (National Institutes of Health), and NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration).
The CDC is the U.S. federal health agency responsible for disease monitoring, infection prevention, and public health policy. It collects and publishes epidemiological data and plays a crucial role in managing pandemics and prevention programs—essential not only to public health in the U.S. but globally.
NIH is the largest public health research institution in the U.S. and one of the world’s leading research centers, managing important databases like PubMed. NOAA gathers U.S. weather and climate data, making it accessible to researchers and the public.

Public research websites have been tagged with disclaimers distancing the government from scientific responsibility. Federal support to universities has been revoked for political reasons.
Researchers have been fired simply for working on climate issues, transgender rights, or diversity.
Semi-private actors, like Elon Musk’s DOGE group (Department of Government Efficiency), have been tasked with hunting down critical researchers and academic institutions. These hunts include violations of academic independence, withdrawal of federal funding, and illegal surveillance and misuse of sensitive personal data of both staff and students.
In one of the most extreme cases, student activists have been arrested by executive order—without trial. Meanwhile, Musk’s violent "troll army" on X has been implicitly legitimized to harass researchers, creating a climate in which scholars are afraid to show their faces—or share personally identifiable information.

At the same time, the university as an institution is being attacked from within. Initiatives have been launched to defund universities that fail to meet ideological requirements. Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs are being shut down. Research centers are closing. Lecturers are being censored or threatened when they teach politically disfavored topics.
Fields like climate and gender studies are especially vulnerable, but all areas of research are affected.
Legislation in several states now bans the teaching of specific theories and concepts—directly undermining academic freedom.

Scholars and students experience a growing culture of fear, with self-censorship and restrictions spreading.
Many are considering leaving the U.S.—some already have. Academic environments become paralyzed when fear spreads. An entire generation of early-career researchers—postdocs, PhD students, and junior faculty—are now at risk of having their careers cut short or destroyed.
Their reliance on federal funding makes them especially vulnerable. Without access to teaching, networks, or data, their future contributions to science are in jeopardy.

This is not merely a culture war. It is an authoritarian assault on critical thinking and on universities as sanctuaries for knowledge and debate.

The international academic community is beginning to respond. ALLEA, the European Federation of Academies of Sciences and Humanities, has expressed “serious concern” over the U.S. government’s political censorship, funding freezes, and attacks on academic freedom.
They warn that this could have “devastating consequences” for global collaborations and research breakthroughs—particularly in health, climate, and social justice.

Meanwhile, Norway’s Minister for Research and Higher Education, Sigrun Aasland, has convened her Nordic colleagues—including the Danish minister—for a crisis meeting to discuss how best to protect research data and international partnerships.
The University of Bergen has already begun efforts to rescue critical datasets in collaboration with international partners. The fear is that time series and data—built over decades—may be lost, compromising research on everything from polar regions to public health.

The French university Aix-Marseille has already welcomed its first U.S. scholar and is offering asylum to more American researchers as part of a program designed to make French universities “a safe haven” for those targeted by Trump’s policies.

Connections between European and American research communities are not just academic; they are historical, personal, human.
If we don’t act now, we risk weakening an entire generation of scholars—not just in the U.S., but across the global academic network. The escalation is already well underway.

That is why we in the Movement for a Free Academia believe we must act now. Expressing concern is not enough.
We call on Danish and Nordic universities, foundations, civil society, government, and parliament to establish a united protection effort.

Denmark must offer temporary research positions to threatened American scholars, provide access to research infrastructure and networks—just as we did for Ukrainian colleagues, and for Polish-Jewish researchers in the early 1970s.
Access to European archives should be granted to researchers in exile, and key datasets housed in the U.S. and threatened by digital book burnings—particularly in climate, health, and inequality—must be copied and protected here.

We must also develop mechanisms for rapid data and project transfers to European grounds, where legal and political protections are possible. This could include a dedicated data protection unit under Horizon Europe, expanded access to Danish supercomputers, or a “researcher asylum” for digital resources.
The global research infrastructure must not be left to the whims of individual nation-states. It is all of our responsibility.

We propose that Danish universities offer “affiliated” positions to American lecturers banned from teaching at home, and that existing research partnerships be reviewed to ensure transparency, ethics, and inclusion.
This also requires changes in Danish law, enabling us to welcome scholars and their families quickly and without bureaucracy. A special act should ensure access to housing, childcare, language courses, and residency. We can draw on the structures created during the reception of Ukrainian academics in 2022.

As an urgent and concrete step, we propose the creation of Operation Socrates: A national program for American researchers in exile.
The program should be run by the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters, which has the required expertise independent of political and financial interests.
American scholars should be granted four-year fellowships—long enough to establish themselves and continue their PhDs or research projects in collaboration with colleagues across Denmark’s ten universities.
The program should be open to researchers across disciplines, with the possibility of bringing their PhD students and families.

If Operation Socrates is to be more than just a noble idea, it requires that the minister get involved, as her Norwegian counterpart has.
Danish universities must make a coordinated effort and open their doors.
Parliament can allocate a relatively small portion of the national research reserve, and major research-funding foundations like the Novo Nordisk Foundation and Carlsberg can contribute—perhaps with a grateful nod to what the American market has meant for them.
We urge all these actors to take up the task now. We, of course, offer our full support wherever relevant.

At the same time, we should use the U.S. crisis as an opportunity to reflect inward. Academic freedom is not only under threat in the U.S.—it is also fragile in Denmark.
Several international rankings place Denmark low on research freedom—especially in terms of researchers’ ability to engage in public debate, criticize political decisions, and choose their own research topics.
In a time of increasing political control, micromanagement, and external funding pressure, we must reinvent the framework for research freedom here at home.

We should see the U.S. crisis as both a mirror and a magnifying glass on our own conditions.
The attacks on academic freedom in the U.S. are not just warnings—they are opportunities to strengthen our own democratic pillars.
Independent research is not a luxury, but a necessity for any enlightened society.
It is the basis for science to serve as a genuine counterbalance, a corrective, a critical voice in society. It entails the right—and the duty—to ask difficult questions, even of the structures and decisions shaping society.

That’s why we must strengthen scholars’ freedom of expression, ensure academic independence, and invest in environments where long-term, risk-taking, independent research can thrive.

But we must go beyond reaction. We must think long-term and creatively.
In the Movement for a Free Academia, we don’t only think about traditional research institutions. We can imagine the creation of free, green universities inspired by the folk high school tradition.
Universities where researchers and students live and think together. Where governance is free from ministerial micromanagement and external funding logic.
Where critical, creative, interdisciplinary thinking is central.
Where the material framework is based on degrowth principles: low consumption, local self-sufficiency, and more time for reflection over constant production. These free universities could host American scholars (and their families) and create safe spaces for new idea formation.

These universities could be beacons of freedom in a Europe now uniquely positioned to show global leadership at a time when the U.S. appears to be retreating from its role as a guarantor of academic openness.
These are solutions we in the Nordic Movement for a Free Academia—and through the Nordic Summer University—have been exploring for the past year.
Now, more than ever, the time is right to actually build something new—a necessity in an era where the global ecosystem of free thought is under threat.

The crisis is, therefore, not just a time to save what can be saved—but also to create new structures, if we dare.

History has shown us that when free research is threatened in one place, it must be defended from all sides.
We owe our colleagues in the U.S. not just solidarity—but action. Because we know: if it can happen there, it can happen here.

Academic freedom is not a luxury.
It is a necessity for any enlightened society.

Movement for a Free Academia, the Branch in Denmark, 2nd of April, 2025

(Signed by the board members — list available upon request)