University of Otago international relations Prof Robert Patman said he was made aware of Auckland University issuing a warning for staff that recent international media reports indicated "increased scrutiny" for academics who might produce work considered to be "politically sensitive".
Prof Patman said he was not surprised by Auckland’s moves, and agreed there had been a fundamental shift in US policy since the election of President Trump.
"What’s changed, I think, has been that the Trump administration have set one of the targets it wants change in is the university sector.
"It basically has served notice: Australia has already been told in January that the Trump administration does not want its funding to go to projects which are at variance with the stated objectives of the administration."
A University of Otago spokeswoman said yesterday there had been no university directive issued to either staff or students about travel to the US.
"However, the university has sought some external advice about travel to the USA.
"That advice will be disseminated to staff and students very soon."
The university continued to be guided by advice from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, she said.
Prof Patman said he could not remember a time since the McCarthy era when academics and artists were explicitly targeted by a US administration.
"More generally, the administration doesn’t want anything that’s critical of them.
"That has big implications for social science, but it also has implications for science sectors as well.
"It also runs across the ethos that universities should speak truth to power, whether it be scientific truth or whether it be social science truth."
Asked whether he would be concerned about visiting the US, Prof Patman said he would be.
"I’d be very careful. If you take someone like myself as an international relations scholar, until the Covid-19 period, I regularly attended, almost on an annual basis, a massive gathering of international relations scholars, which is usually held in the US or neighbouring Canada.
"I personally would not travel to the US at the moment, because although my research is not focused on criticising the Trump administration, I have certainly criticised US foreign policy in relation to Israel and made media contributions along those lines."
He had been told by colleagues there was an atmosphere of fear among the universities in the US.
"A number of distinguished colleagues have actually sought to leave the US, and some have left, because they’re fearful that the security of their tenure will be compromised by the new sort of agenda of the Trump administration.
"The new Trump team seems to be undermining the rule of law and steering the US towards autocratic government."
Auckland University was being "quite realistic" in its approach to the matter.
