Dr. Freeman was honored as one of the Accomplished Under 40 award recipients for 2020 by the Idaho Business Review. In 2021, Dr. Freeman gave and received the Barbara Townsend Lecture and Award from the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE).

He is the founding director of the University’s Black History Research Lab and the recipient of the 2022 Carlos J. Vallejo Memorial Award for Exemplary Scholarship, awarded by the Multicultural/Multiethnic Education: theory, research and practice group within the American Educational Research Association (AERA). This past April he was named one of the "Stellar 40 under 40” alumni of Oakwood University. In June, he received the 2023 McInness/Ryan Mid-Career Leadership Award from the American Association of University Administrators.

In November, 2023 Dr. Freeman was awarded a prestigious honor from The Moscow Human Rights Commission as the recipient of the 2023 Ismat Ara and Abdul Mannan Sheikh Community Unity Award. Dr. Freeman’s name was engraved on a central plaque housed in the Moscow, Idaho City Hall as well as a commemorative rock plaque in East City Park.

Also an accomplished author Dr. Freeman and Brody Grasper Co-Authored a groundbreaking work together: “The Seminal History and Prospective Future of Blacks at the University of Idaho.” Brody Gasper and Sydney Freeman Jr. Co-authored this groundbreaking text that chronicles the contributions of Blacks at U of I starting in the late 1890's when Idaho's first Black graduate, Jennie Eva Hughes, began matriculating here. Find the book here.