From Antagonism to Care: Reimagining Academic Freedom and Justice in Higher Education (Guest Editors' Introduction)

The papers included in this special issue of Studies in Social Justice originally stem from the draft papers presented at this conference.In our call for papers, we understood the need to recognize how antagonism in the academy works on the ground.In other words, how it can target welltrained faculty members and students and erode their research work or related activities; how it can undermine academic freedom, that is, from a human rights standpoint, "the human right to acquire, develop, transmit, apply, and engage with a diversity of knowledge and ideas through research, teaching, learning, and discourse" (Scholars at Risk [SAR], 2024, p. 8).Additionally, how it can connect to political or religious interference in research and teaching and articulate issues of social injustice and social justice.This special issue comprises papers that discuss various aspects of antagonism and intimidation in academia, including the role of censorship, unimpeded corporate interests, gender and sexuality relations, race and ethnicity matters, exclusionary politics and power dynamics, and institutional practices and relations in higher education.It also offers strategies for creating constructive and germane dialogue and effective tools for community and social justice engagement, and for enhancing safe environments for critical thinking, openness, and solidaritybuilding.Several contributions discuss approaches that involve engagement in meaningful debate with opposing, and even highly controversial, standpoints.Alongside these key concerns, some papers emphasize the concept of trust, which is explored for its significance in higher education institutions and related societal contexts.Overall, the collection of papers highlights the need to develop or enhance socially just practices and frameworks that can generate spaces of care and inclusion, foster academic freedom as a kind of social responsibility to promote democratic values (see Darian-Smith, 2025), and rebuild trust -both within the academy and with various communities. Academic Work under AttackUniversity scholars across many disciplines increasingly face antagonistic or hostility-based reactions toward their work, particularly those engaged in social justice scholarship primarily in humanities, social sciences, law and legal studies, as well as in other fields such as medicine and sciences.Such scholarship addresses, for example, discrimination based on gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, and religion.It also speaks to research on vulnerable and precarious individuals and groups; on science, evolution, and technology; on health and medicine issues; and on environment and climate change matters (e.