By Sarah Lynch
Al Fanar
Originally published April 3, 2013
Accreditation by U.S. agencies is a prize that many universities in the Arab world have sought in recent years, a prize that allows them to sell students from the region on getting an education at U. S. standards closer to home and at a lower cost.
But could that prize have a price—the risk of losing accreditation if autocratic Arab regimes tighten up, academic freedom slips, and accreditation gets pulled?
Accreditation in the United States is carried out by agencies responsible for different regions of the country, some of which have recently ventured overseas to accredit foreign universities. All of the U.S. accreditation agencies have at least some academic freedom guidelines. “The success of American higher education, including the high regard in which it is held worldwide, is explained in good measure by the observance of academic freedom,” said an October 2012 statement of the American Association of University Professors and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation.
A recent incident in the United Arab Emirates put that emphasis on academic freedom into focus. A conference co-organized by the London School of Economics and the American University of Sharjah was set to be held in the Emirates in February, then cancelled after the government insisted that a presentation about Bahrain be dropped. The London School of Economics called off the conference “in response to restrictions imposed on the intellectual content of the event that threatened academic freedom.”
The entire story is here.