Academia y democracia en la universidad pública mexicana

Abstract

The article maintains that the values of intellectual plurality, professorial freedom and autonomy are inherent to the UNAM since its inception. Naturally, asserting these values has not been an enterprise free of obstacles and difficulties, as a quick review of its own history shows. In spite of undisputedly being an important generator of culture and higher knowledge, the UNAM is an institution quite vulnerable. In this sense, the article stands behind the thesis that maintains that the high bureaucratic structures responsible for managing public education in Mexico have taken advantage of the inherent fragility of the UNAM -and of higher education as a whole- to cancel its autonomy and its freedom. The author maintains that, starting with a malicious and slanted reading of the decay of public higher education, the search for a project to transform and privatize it is underway. Therefore, the main consequence that such 'modernizing" projects share is none other than to eliminate the political commitment performed by the UNAM, directed at democratizing access to the goods generated by its functions.