Will the United States score in the bottom 50% for academic freedom in 2025 (according to the AFI)?

The Academic Freedom Index (AFI) is a comprehensive and widely recognized tool for assessing de facto levels of academic freedom across the world. The AFI evaluates five key indicators of academic freedom, including the freedom to research and teach, freedom of academic exchange and dissemination, institutional autonomy, campus integrity, and freedom of academic and cultural expression. The index currently covers 179 countries and territories, and is considered the most comprehensive dataset available on the subject of academic freedom. The index employs a methodology that includes assessments by 2,197 country experts, standardized questionnaires, and a well-established statistical model, implemented and adapted by the V-Dem project. The 2023 report (of the period up to December 2022) places the United States of the America in the Top 40-50% bracket (pg. 2-3) and outlines the following threats to academic freedom:

China, India, the United States of America and Mexico are among the most populous countries where academic freedom has significantly fallen back over the past decade. These developments have occurred in different political settings and do not all follow the same pattern.

The United States of America presents a different picture. After a long period of relatively high academic freedom levels, four out of five indicators visibly declined in 2021 – the year after President Donald Trump, who repeatedly made statements highly critical of science and academia, was voted out of office. Although some federal actions detrimental to academic freedom were taken during his administration, educational matters in the USA are largely regulated by individual states, which have increasingly used their authority to interfere in academic affairs since 2021. At least nine states, all Republican-led, have adopted bills that ban the teaching of concepts related to “critical race theory” in higher education institutions. Several states are also targeting tenure in public universities, adding to the already precarious status of academic employment. Some states now also allow students to record class lectures without the professor’s consent. Furthermore, influential conservative groups are lobbying state legislatures to withdraw funding from scientific fields such as gender, minority studies, and environmental science, and various groups are maintaining public “watchlists” of professors perceived as radical leftists. Despite efforts to polarize and intimidate, AFI data on academics’ freedom of expression indicates that scholars in the USA remain able to publically voice their expertise, even on politically salient issues.