Robert Quinn

Robert Quinn is a human rights advocate, lecturer, lawyer, and executive director of Scholars at Risk (SAR). SAR is an international network of over 660 higher education institutions and thousands of individuals in over 42 countries dedicated to protecting at-risk scholars, promoting academic freedom, and defending everyone’s freedom to think, question and share ideas. Mr. Quinn is a co-editor on Free to Think, SAR’s annual reports on attacks on universities worldwide; coinstructor on the free online course Dangerous Questions: Why Academic Freedom Matters; and the host of the Free to Think podcast, featuring conversations with inspiring people working at the intersection of power and ideas. Mr. Quinn is the author of, among others, From words to actions: A call for international guidelines on implementing academic freedom, in GUNi World Report-Special Issue: New Visions for Higher Education Institutions towards 2030 (May 2022); Academic SelfCensorship Is a ‘Brain Drag’ on Arab Universities and Societies, Al-Fanar Media (April 18, 2021); What is academic freedom?, in A New Beginning: Philipp Schwartz-Initiative for Researchers at Risk, Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung/Foundation (April 2021); Quinn, Spannagel, & Saliba, Why university rankings must include academic freedom, University World News (March 14, 2021); The Fight to Protect--and Define--Academic Freedom, in Academe, the magazine of the AAUP (October 2019); Free speech is not enough, in AAC&U, Diversity & Democracy, summer 2017; and V.E.R.I.T.A.S., remarks at the Scholars at Risk 2018 Global Congress.

Mr. Quinn previously served as the founding Executive Director of the IIE Scholar Rescue Fund and an adjunct lecturer in law at the University of Chicago and Fordham Law School. He holds an AB from Princeton University, a JD from Fordham Law School, and honorary doctorates from the Vrije Universiteit Brussels (VUB), Belgium and from Illinois Wesleyan University, United States. Among other honors, Mr. Quinn and Scholars at Risk received the University of Oslo’s Lisl and Leo Eitinger Prize, for “relentless work to protect the human rights of academics and for having inspired and engaged others to stress the importance of academic freedom.” To learn more about SAR, joining the network, or donating visit https://scholarsatrisk.org.