New York - In October of 2024, Henry Davidkhanian Wright, chair of the Youth Democracy Movement, represented the Global Student Forum at the Open Society Foundations event, “The Right to Academic Freedom and the Advancement of the Sustainable Development Goals,” co-convened with the Global Campaign for Education, Education International, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, United Nations Human Rights Special Procedures, the Latin American Council of Social Sciences, and the Coalition for Academic Freedom in the Americas.
Building on the discussion that took place on the sidelines of the 56th session of the Human Rights Council, Wright conveyed the Global Student Forum’s gratitude for the Special Rapporteur’s report, “The right to academic freedom,” and urged member states to consider academic freedom as an autonomous human right. With reference to the attacks on educational infrastructure in Gaza and the protests on university campuses, Wright asserted three points:
- The humanitarian crisis in Gaza must prompt the international community to prioritize the right to education in emergency situations and to protect the right to academic freedom for all students, regardless of national identity, partisan affiliation, or personal opinion.
- Beyond the reach of war, students in stable nation-states are vulnerable to violations of academic freedom. Persecuted and fragmented, students are made vulnerable by their isolation. Student unionization provides the shortest path to protecting academic freedom.
- When academic freedom is under attack, the purpose of education is forgotten. Education awakens the latent powers of students, draws out nascent ideas, and refines them through free exchange, even when those ideas are controversial or implicated in geopolitics.
Wright concluded, “In moments of emergency—real or contrived—we must remember that winning an argument, or an altercation—or, for that matter, remaining silent in the face of a brutal bombing campaign—results in an indisputable loss of learning, bringing us all a step farther away from finding a resolution, making peace, and laying the foundation for sustainable development.”
