Safeguarding Education and Knowledge from Technocratic Control and Government Coercion

By Yusuf Jones

“One of the things that has to be faced is the process of waiting to change the system, how much we have got to do to find out who we are, where we have come from and where we are going.” - Ella Baker

Knowledge, at its best, empowers communities, fosters innovation, and nurtures progress. But today, the institutions we trust to safeguard knowledge - universities, research centers, and academic journals - face unprecedented threats from political interference and technocratic exploitation.

Recently, Columbia University experienced a shocking coercion event: the withdrawal of $400 million in federal funding, conditional on implementing sweeping curricular and institutional reforms dictated by external political interests. This event underscores a troubling trend across American universities: the increasing willingness of political and technocratic powers to reshape education and research for their own ends.

This pattern isn’t isolated. In over 20 states, legislative measures targeting diversity and inclusion programs, academic autonomy, and curricular independence are undermining educators' ability to teach, research, and publish freely. As the American Association of University Professors notes, academic freedom today faces its most severe threats since the era of McCarthyism.

At the same time, a quieter but equally dangerous threat is emerging: the extraction and exploitation of university research by large-scale AI infrastructures. A colleague at a major research university recently revealed that their institution faced a non-public government demand to provide full access to its academic outputs for integration into government AI systems. These kinds of practices put intellectual property, academic privacy, and the core integrity of scholarly work at serious risk.

These developments force us to confront a challenging truth: our current knowledge infrastructures are no longer reliable protectors of intellectual freedom.

History gives us models for how to respond. In the 1960s, civil rights organizers launched Freedom Schools - community-run educational spaces built in direct response to systemic racism, institutional oppression, and educational exclusion. These schools became democratic, people-powered spaces for learning, creativity, and critical thinking. They remind us that when institutions fail to protect the people they serve, communities can - and must - step in to create something better.

Taking inspiration from that legacy, today’s knowledge workers must begin building alternatives now. Blockchain technology offers strong tools for protecting and preserving research. Blockchain-based publishing platforms can provide open, permanent, and censorship-resistant records of academic work, ensuring that vital knowledge is stored securely and remains accessible to the people who need it most.

We can also build decentralized, community-powered learning environments that don’t rely on institutional approval. Cross-sector collaborations like hackathons and innovation sprints allow academics, technologists, and local leaders to work together in open, adaptive spaces. These environments support experimentation, co-creation, and learning that isn’t controlled by politics or bureaucracy.

And rather than feeding centralized AI systems with unaccountable governance, we should be developing open-source, locally managed AI tools. These tools can be designed with ethical guardrails, transparent algorithms, and community oversight - ensuring that they serve people, not power structures.

“Not every person with a heart is understanding, not every person with ears is a listener, and not every person with eyes is able to see.” - Imam Ali (peace be upon him)

This relevant wisdom speaks directly to our moment. Having access to data doesn’t mean someone truly understands it. True insight takes humility, clarity, and reflection - qualities that can’t be automated or credentialed. As institutions face pressure from every side, we’re being called to build systems that go beyond storing information. We need spaces that know how to listen, to see what matters, and to act with heart.

We are standing at a crossroads. To reclaim the future of knowledge, we have to take responsibility for it. That means building decentralized alternatives - ecosystems grounded in transparency, ethics, collaboration, and community care.

Because if we don’t protect knowledge, others will control it.

And they won’t use it to liberate.

Now is the time to act.