Academic freedom is under siege. A recent survey from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) reveals professors are shutting their mouths and biting their tongues out of fear of being canceled.
Of their newly released report “The Academic Mind in 2022,” FIRE (where I’ve been a fellow since 2021) surveyed nearly 1,500 professors from colleges and universities across the country. The outcomes show mass self-censorship and a widespread fear that saying the flawed thing could cost them their reputations — and even their jobs.
“I’ve been defending free speech on campus for twenty-two years now, and it was clear that things have been getting much worse over the past couple years,” FIRE President and CEO Greg Lukianoff told me. “But these numbers, it’s even worse than I assumed.”
Greater than half (52%) of professors reported being “afraid of losing their jobs or reputations because someone misunderstands something they said or did, takes it out of context, or posts something from their past online.”
Some 72% of conservative faculty members and 56% of moderates felt this manner, while 40% of liberal faculty members did. Roughly one-third (34%) said they often feel they’ll not express their opinions due to how students, colleagues or school administration might respond.
I witnessed this erosion of free speech on campus firsthand as a school student at NYU. As a then-junior in 2021, I wrote concerning the pressure I felt to evolve to the ultra-progressive environment at my university — and the satisfaction I ultimately felt once I spoke out and was true to my values.
It’s no wonder professors feel this manner too, considering just how illiberal campuses have develop into. Professors from across the country have found themselves ensnared in cancel culture — and a few have even been punished by their universities for breaking with campus orthodoxy.
Lukianoff says he was especially shocked to learn 11% of college members say they’ve either been disciplined or threatened with discipline by administrators for what they taught within the classroom. A further 4% were threatened or punished for research, academic talks or work in non-academic publications.
That implies that roughly one in seven professors have been intimidated for his or her speech.
“We already know that a whole bunch of professors have been targets of cancel culture, but we also know that there are closed-door hearings and other ways to pressure professors into conformity which might be done entirely in secret,” Lukianoff said. “This destroys lives and harms the integrity of educational research.”
Free speech on campus is critical to making sure that professors and students alike can wrestle with difficult ideas and ask tough questions. That’s, in spite of everything, the very purpose of a school education.
But when significant numbers of professors are being threatened and even punished for daring to being controversial, it sends a chilling message to others around them: conform or risk the identical fate.
“An investigation, or the mere threat of 1, can create or strengthen existing social pressure to avoid certain topics, questions, or viewpoints, stifling classroom discussions of complex and necessary topics,” the FIRE report reads.
FIRE’s survey makes it clear: academic freedom is suffering at colleges and universities across the country—including our most prestigious ones. In truth, last 12 months FIRE bestowed Yale University with its Lifetime Censorship Award for “repeatedly violating the free expression and academic freedom rights of scholars and students.
“Yale’s formidable academic fame is on a collision course with reality, and there’s no sign that its leadership is even attempting to swerve.”
When professors at even the best of institutions are avoiding controversy, it spells disaster for public faith in academia. How can we trust academics to push boundaries and make discoveries if everyone seems to be too afraid to challenge the establishment?
“This will not be a sustainable environment for a spot that’s alleged to produce ideas,” Lukianoff warned. “And it’s something that ought to have all Americans concerned.”
