Brennan Center for Justice

Following the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, the Brennan Center remains concerned that the prohibition on providing “material support” to terrorist groups poses a serious threat to academic freedom. Anthropologists in particular face the possibility that critical research concerning terrorist groups and the populations that live under their influence may run afoul of the law due to the need for researchers to directly communicate and engage with the subjects of their studies. The result is a deep chilling effect on individual research and institutional development not seen since the Cold War.

Michael Price, counsel for the Brennan Center’s Liberty & National Security Program, explores this phenomenon in the February issue of Anthropology Today, available here, and calls on the academic community to support reform efforts.