Mohan Dutta receives international award for Academic Freedom work

Academic Mohan Dutta has received a major international citation recognising his leadership in defending academic freedom and his work chairing a task force examining threats to scholars, universities and critical research around the world.

Professor Dutta, Dean’s Chair in Communication and Director of the Center for Culture-Centered Approach to Research and Evaluation (CARE) at Massey University, has been awarded the National Communication Association Presidential Citation.

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The award recognises Dutta’s service as chair of the NCA Task Force on Academic Freedom and Tenure between the years 2024 to 2025.

The NCA, founded in 1914, is the largest scholarly association in the discipline of communication, representing thousands of scholars and teachers in the United States and internationally.

Image: Mohan Dutta says coordinated campaigns targeting academics are designed to pressure institutions and silence politically inconvenient research under the guise of free speech and academic freedom. (File. / Supplied / Mohan Dutta @mjdutt)

Dutta said the recognition reflected a commitment to protecting the conditions that allow scholars to do critical work.

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“Some recognitions carry weight because they reflect service to a community and to a set of values larger than oneself,” Dutta said.

“Academic freedom is the material foundation that enables scholars to ask difficult questions, challenge entrenched structures of power, and produce knowledge that serves communities at the margins. Protecting it is an institutional responsibility and a collective commitment.”

The Task Force report warns of organised attacks on academic freedom and tenure in the United States and globally, including campaigns targeting scholarship on race, Palestine, decolonisation, settler colonialism, Hindutva, far-right nationalism and other contested areas of public debate.

Image: Professor Mohan Dutta speaking to thisquality about coordinated harassment campaigns targeting his research and commentary on Hindutva nationalism, Islamophobia and far-right political networks. (File. / Supplied / Mohan Dutta @mjdutt)

In additional comments accompanying a press release sent to thisquality, Dutta said the risks were also relevant to New Zealand.

“The threats to academic freedom we are witnessing do not emerge in isolation. They are part of a broader transnational pattern that has already reshaped the academic landscape in the United States, where coordinated campaigns of political pressure, disinformation, surveillance, and harassment have sought to silence scholars who challenge entrenched power,” Dutta said.

Attacks are not just threats to individual academics, they are threats to democracy itself.

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The report identifies tactics including weaponised complaints, classroom surveillance, databases targeting academics, and attempts to criminalise protected academic speech and scholarship.

Dutta warned some university leaders had failed to meet their responsibility to defend scholars under pressure.

“We must learn from these developments. We cannot wait until these tactics become normalised. We must build the capacity to respond—through solidarity, legal preparedness, institutional accountability, and collective action,” Dutta said.

The citation also belonged to the members of the Task Force, naming Anjuli Brekke, Tom Discenna, Tina M. Harris, Kevin Johnson and Katherine Thweatt, as well as NCA leaders, colleagues, students and collaborators who supported the work.

Image: Massey University defended academic freedom amid pressure campaigns targeting research and commentary by Professor Mohan Dutta. (Supplied / Massey University)

From CARE at Massey University, Dutta remains committed to research, dialogue and organising that strengthens academic freedom, justice and the public mission of higher education.

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