A Growing Threat to Academic Freedom in the United States, Experts Warn
Concerns are mounting among experts at the Goethe University in Frankfurt that the freedom of opinion and science in the United States is under severe threat. The Trump administration’s campaign against certain universities has put research and teaching under increasing pressure, according to experts. Young American researchers at the Goethe University expressed the fear that academic freedom in their homeland could be further restricted.
Heike Schäfer, a German Americanist, is closely monitoring the campaigns by conservative circles for book bans. Since 2021, the number of bans in public libraries and school libraries has skyrocketed. For the 2023-24 school year, the writers’ association Pen America reported over 10,000 censorship cases and the banning of more than 4,200 individual titles.
In response, the literary scene in the United States is reacting with creative adaptations of well-known texts, often giving rise to new works. These “Erasures” often represent the perspectives and voices that are suppressed or made invisible in the social discourse.