There are several reasons why the issues of academic freedom and university autonomy have re-emerged on the agenda in the last few years. First of all, there is the spiralling increase in the number of students since the end of the Second World War with, as its corollary, the explosion in most countries--whatever their political or social system--of the number of higher education institutions. Three other phenomena have also played just as decisive a role: (1) the fall of many dictatorial or authoritarian regimes, and more especially the Communist regimes in the former Soviet Union and Europe; (2) the growing influence of the economic world, be it on teaching or research, with applied and basic research contracts being more and more entrusted to universities, and the creation of "universities" by or within large firms, and more especially multinationals; and (3) the ever more rapid development, thanks to the new means of communication offered by today's technology, of distance education and, as a corollary the creation of "virtual" universities whose activities extend to many countries and are almost universal. The issues of academic freedom and university autonomy are sometimes posed in an ambiguous manner, and notably so when no distinction is made between the specific character of academic freedom and freedom of expression. One of the objectives in this study is to make a satisfactory distinction between the two. (Contains 13 endnotes.)