As the nation braces for the 14th anniversary of Reformasi, university campuses, the driving force behind the sweeping political changes in May 1998, are showing signs of reviving the spirit of the authoritarian regime that they once helped bring down.

Gadjah Mada University (UGM) in Yogyakarta, the country's oldest state university, and Diponegoro University (Undip) in Semarang set a bad precedent for the protection of intellectual freedom when they each prevented their students from discussing lesbian and gay issues last week.

UGM canceled a discussion about the book Allah, Liberty and Love, written by Canadian author Irshad Manji, for "security reasons" last Wednesday. Manji had met with opposition from hardline Muslim groups who accused her of promoting homosexuality, but UGM's move to deprive its inquiring young students of their right to exchange views with the liberal Muslim activist marked the university's step closer to conservatism.

Undip is no different. Its banning on Thursday of student group Kronik Filmedia from screening and discussing 10 short films inspired by true stories of same-sex romance amounts to a gross violation of the freedom of expression and speech, regarded as the fundamental basis of the intellectual community.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well as the Constitution, protect intellectual freedom, which is defined as the right to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media, regardless of frontiers.

In Indonesian history, campuses have played a pivotal role in pushing for political changes, dating back to the Dutch colonial era, as evidenced by the spread of nationalism spearheaded by students of Stovia, which is now the University of Indonesia's School of Medicine.

Students contributed much to the winds of change that swept across the country in the mid-1960s. They supported a new regime that pledged to lead the nation to prosperity but without losing their courage to be critical as shown by the Jan. 15, 1974 demonstrations against foreign investment known as the Malari incident.

Then came the tireless students who chanted the Reformasi credo as they took to the streets across the country to demand the resignation of president Soeharto, which climaxed in 1998, when the Asian financial crisis hit hard. The state's recognition, albeit symbolic, of the students' role in auguring change was apparent in president BJ Habibie's reference to the four Trisakti University students shot dead in May 12, 1998 as reform heroes.

Indeed, students are agents of change in Indonesia and elsewhere in the world, no matter how stringent are government efforts to silence them. Indonesia under the authoritarian New Order regime saw the government seek every avenue to control students, including by enforcing "normalization of campus life" to prevent what was happening outside their campuses from distracting them from their studies.

But who on earth can stifle human curiosity and the desire to discover the truth, which are the characteristics of students and intellectuals in general? In the 16th Century, Nicolaus Copernicus insisted that the sun was the center of the universe, braving the authorities of the church and the king, who reportedly ordered his killing by arsenic poisoning.

There are many examples to prove that any attempt to restrict intellectual freedom is doomed to fail.

What UGM and Undip have done to their students' intellectual freedom reminds us all of the New Order-style abuse of power to normalize campuses and marks a setback for the nation's struggle to promote and protect its citizens' liberties. Officials of the two prominent state universities may not face government sanctions, but they have made a bad name for themselves, at least in the eyes of the supporters of intellectual freedom.