Our Common Humanity in the Information Age. Principles and Values for Development

FREEDOM TO TEACH 
Allan E. Goodman, President and CEO, Institute of International 
Education
Without freedom, many concepts now in practical service to humankind might not exist.
It was no accident, consequently, that when the Secretary General asked the heads of 
major world universities to gather annually to discuss major global public policy 
challenges, he chose “academic freedom” for the inaugural meeting. The “freedom to be 
educated,” to which the Millennium Development Goals refer, is an empty promise if 
there are no teachers or if their “freedom to conduct research, teach, speak and publish … 
without interference or penalty” is in jeopardy.
Scholar rescue has been a part of the Institute’s work since its founding in 1919. Then, 
scholars were caught in the crossfire of the Bolshevik Revolution. Today they are prime 
targets of terrorists and regimes who would press into service those who have the 
knowledge to build weapons of mass destruction. Over the years, we have probably 
helped some 10,000 scholars to get out of harm’s way and continue their work in a safe 
place.
I am haunted by one particular period and one list. The period is the early 1930s, when 
Edward R. Murrow was the Institute’s assistant director and in charge of the Emergency 
Committee for Dis placed German Scholars. He managed to save some 400 scholars . The 
list included 4 Nobel Prize winners in science, the author Thomas Mann, the composer 
Bela Bartok, and the philosophers Paul Tillich and Martin Buber.
The list that haunts me is not that one, however. It is the 6,000 names of those who had 
applied or come to Murrow’s attention. Many – like Albert Einstein -- were helped by 
other sources, but so many others perished in the holocaust. Think of the kind of books, 
consequently, that did not get written, or ask yourself this question: Among those lost, 
were there discoveries of the cures for diseases and problems that still plague us? We will 
never know.
The list on which the Institute’s Scholar Rescue Fund staff is currently working has more 
than 1,000 names. Many universities around the world are helping to take in the scholars 
we save. By increasing attention to the problem, the UN and many others attending this 
conference are helping to make the world a less dangerous place for scholars. And, in the 

---

Chapter II – Freedom and Development | 31 
process, we are also making sure that no conflict, genocide, or terrorist can succeed in 
destroying knowledge, which is civilization’s best hope for assuring that humanity has a 
future.