Academic freedom is now being betrayed by academics

The ultimate purpose of a university is, without fear or favour, to pursue the truth, and in furtherance of that ideal I try, as an historian, to go wherever the evidence leads me. That some folks – even some academic colleagues – may not feel comfortable with the end results is of absolutely no consequence. I’ve always been supported by the institutions at which I’ve worked and by the colleagues with whom I work with. But it’s now becoming clear to me that this world and these norms are under attack, and – scarcely less worrying – that they are being betrayed from within.

Consider the following two stories that emerged earlier this month:

A psychotherapist master’s student at Bath Spa University, Mr James Caspian, has been told he cannot study cases of people who have opted to have their gender-reassignment surgery reversed because such research was “potentially ‘politically incorrect’.”
Almost half of the editorial board of the prestigious journal Third World Quarterly [published by Taylor & Francis] has resigned following publication of an article in that journal that reportedly pointed out some of the positive aspects of colonialism; the list of these resignations includes six UK-based academics.