Academic freedom, human rights and Palestine: scholasticide and scholar-activism in UK higher education

Academic freedom is presented as foundational to UK higher education, yet its fragility exponentially exposed, since October 2023, when scholarship, teaching, and activism centre Palestine. This article examines how UK universities increasingly regulate Palestine-related expression through disciplinary procedures, securitised risk, reputational management, and institutional silence. Framing academic freedom as structural to human rights and education, we argue that universities hold obligations to actively protect scholarly expression. Drawing on human rights law and decolonial scholarship, the article demonstrates how these obligations are unevenly realised, with pro-Palestine scholars disproportionately positioned as controversial. Briefly highlighting some UK case studies, it identifies suppression patterns; interim sanctions, protest criminalisation, and punishment-by-process disciplinary mechanisms restricting lawful expression while maintaining institutional claims to compliance. Situated within the transnational context of scholasticide in Palestine, we advance scholar-activism as a human rights praxis grounded in relational ethics, resistance, and epistemic justice, calling for universities to confront institutional complicity.