Academic Freedom Policy 2025

Consonant with Brown’s tradition concerning academic freedom, the faculty and Corporation, in 1966, adopted the following statement of principles:

Academic freedom is essential to the function of education and to the pursuit of scholarship in universities.

Therefore, Brown University, mindful of its historic commitment to scholarship and to the free exchange of ideas, affirms that faculty and students alike shall enjoy full freedom in their teaching, learning, and research.

Brown University also affirms that faculty and students shall have freedom of religious belief, of speech, of press, of association and assembly, of political activity inside and outside the University, the right to petition the authorities, public and university, to invite speakers of their choice to the campus, and that students and faculty as such should not be required to take any oath not required of other citizens. The time, place, and manner of exercising these rights on campus shall be subject to reasonable regulation only to prevent interference with the normal functions of the University.