The International Consortium of Critical Theory Programs (ICCTP) condemns the recent efforts of the French minister of higher education, Frédérique Vidal, to discredit critical theories under the spurious rubric of “Islamo-gauchisme.” Her inflammatory caricature was presented before the National Assembly on February 16, 2021 when she called for a persecutory investigation into research areas such as postcolonial, decolonial, and gender and critical race studies. We find this proposal to be a dangerous and unacceptable violation of academic freedom. Disparaging entire academic fields as “divisive” and “gangrenous” falsifies these diverse fields and impedes the free circulation of knowledge. The term “Islamo-leftism” …

The International Consortium of Critical Theory Programs (ICCTP) notes with great concern the ongoing coercion of universities in Turkey and condemns the recent appointment by midnight decree of a rector to Boğaziçi University against the will of the faculty and in violation of the university’s democratic practices. There is little doubt that the appointment on January 1, 2021 of Professor Melih Bulu is politically motivated. The new rector is affiliated with the ruling party, AKP, and neither the university administration nor faculty members were consulted concerning the nomination. Boğaziçi is a world-renowned university with a long history of autonomy. It …

The International Consortium of Critical Theory Programs supports free and open critical inquiry, rights of dissent, and opposes state violence against faculty, staff, and students exercising their rights of political expression and peacable assembly.  We therefore condemn the continuing police brutality against students and faculty in India, most recently at Jamia Millia Islamia University, Aligarh Muslim University, and Jawaharlal Nehru University and continued violence against the public across India exercising their rights of assembly and dissent against the Citizen Amendment Act (CAA), National Citizenship Registry (NRC), and National Population Registry (NPR). The recently-instituted CAA bars Muslims from India’s neighboring countries (namely Pakistan, Afghanistan, and …

The International Consortium of Critical Theory Programs opposes the recent efforts of the Brazilian government to cut funding for philosophy and sociology and to intervene in teaching and research to suppress left political views and to effect revisionist history of military dictatorships. Like other Latin American countries, Brazil has been a laboratory for neoliberal experiments focused on the expansion of the free market supported by the intensive militarization of society. Under the current regime, the autonomy of educational and arts institutions has been quickly undermined in favor of state control and censorship over cultural and intellectual life. The closing of …

The International Consortium of Critical Theory Programs notes with great concern the ongoing judicial harassment of signatories of the Academics for Peace petition in Turkey. We are particularly alarmed at the imprisonment of Prof. Dr. Füsun Üstel and Dr. Tuna Altınel who have been deprived of their right to liberty since May 2019, and we call for an end to all such procedures …