This article addresses the inadequacy of the universal approach to academic freedom, which fails to account for the extent to which academic freedom can be exercised. Instead of considering the fixed meaning of academic freedom, the article proposes a relational approach. One that focuses on the relation between academic freedom and the common good, as particular articulations of academic freedom are legitimized through reference to the quasi-universal concept of the common good. To ground this argument, the article examines different historical meanings of the idea of the common good in the relations between the state and the university sector in Poland, and the effect they had on the content and extent of academic freedom. In doing so, it contributes to the discussion on the cultural and national specificities of both academic freedom and the common good.