On how to distinguish critique from an infringement of academic freedom

To have a well-functioning principle of academic freedom, we need to distinguish critique from an infringement of academic freedom. To achieve this goal, this paper presents three necessary conditions for something to be an infringement of academic freedom. These conditions allow to delineate cases in which at least one of the three conditions is not fulfilled. These are contrast cases that might – at first glance – look like infringements of academic freedom but are, in fact, not so. I will refer to five such kinds of contrast cases: (1) discrimination and thus a more general kind of unjust treatment of a person engaged in academic affairs, (2) infringement of freedom of speech or other non-academic intellectual freedoms, (3) mere critique, (4) justified critique that leads to justified limitations of someone’s academic freedom and (5) cases of deep disagreement. Special attention will be given to vulnerabilities concerning unjustified silencing of critique, which haunt fields that lack clear and agreed-on ethical or academic standards.