The Right to Learn as Property Freedom

Sor Juana's hunger for books and learning was blocked by institutional gatekeepers who deemed women unfit for serious study. She wrote of the torment of intellectual exclusion as a violation of her fundamental dignity. In libertarian justice, the right to learn underpins all other property and freedom claims: you cannot exercise informed consent, negotiate contracts, or defend your interests if you are systematically denied knowledge. Sor Juana's insistence on her right to read, question, and think without censorship reframes education not as charity or privilege, but as a prerequisite for freedom. When institutions monopolize knowledge and ration its distribution by status, they strip people of the cognitive tools needed to own themselves and their labor fully. This concept demands that libertarian justice account for epistemic injustice—the systematic denial of learning opportunities—as a form of property theft and freedom violation.