Self-censorship by faculty isn’t just for conservatives anymore.

Liberal faculty are feeling the pressure now, too.

Academic freedom is “deteriorating” according to a new survey of 1,100 faculty conducted back in September and published yesterday by Inside Higher Ed and Hanover Research. The principle that faculty should be free to teach, research, and express their views without retaliation appears under threat globally, supporting the new survey respondents’ sense of the erosion.

 At HxA, we’ve pointed out recent violations of academic freedom for numerous faculty, and we’ve also been discussing the constraints on free inquiry on campus for nearly a decade. So this isn’t fully news to us. 

Still, the numbers in this survey are quite alarming: 91% of faculty agree that academic freedom is under threat across higher education. And 55% say that their specific campus is facing threats to academic freedom.

When asked about whether their own sense of academic freedom has increased or declined in the last year, 22% of surveyed faculty said their sense of academic freedom has declined in research, and a whopping 42% said it has declined in teaching. 

More specifically, 26% of faculty said they are “refraining from teaching certain things in class” and 15% said that they are “refraining from researching and publishing on certain topics.”

These numbers indicate an academic environment in which many faculty feel limited in their ability to do their core work of teaching and research—and, notably, feel limited in their extramural speech, like on social media, which many faculty use to promote their work. 

Although this survey didn’t ask why faculty are refraining from broaching certain topics, a consistent pattern of results has emerged among various campus expression surveys over the years: faculty are scared of being condemned for “wrongthink.” Notably, FIRE’s 2022 faculty survey found that 34% of faculty report being pressured by other faculty on their campus to avoid researching “controversial” topics.

While these results may or may not be surprising—depending on your own view of academic freedom, current campus climate, or personal political orientation—what is surprising is just how high these numbers are given the political demographics of the Inside Higher Ed/Hanover survey’s sample:

Only 74 of the 1,100 respondents identified as politically conservative—just over 6%. While it’s typical for conservative faculty to feel that they are censored in a highly liberal environment, these new data demonstrate that many faculty in the ideological majority now feel pressure to self-censor, too.

In the current political context, academia is on edge. A majority liberal-leaning social institution is being targeted for overhaul by an incoming conservative government. Public trust in higher ed is at an all time low. And legislative efforts are threatening to shake up the status quo. 

These new data signal that the dominant trend of conservative faculty being more likely to self-censor than liberal faculty may be changing, especially with new waves of legislation driven largely by conservatives. (We’ll be sure at HxA to continue to give the nonpartisan shake to these bills to suss out threats to open inquiry and academic freedom.)

We’ve already seen hints of this shift with the ongoing Israeli/Palestinian conflict putting a spotlight on not-so-clean political lines on campus, with pro-Palestinian speech being targeted more than pro-Israel speech. 

This much is clear: Tides are shifting. Political lines are blurring. And academic freedom is becoming the bi-partisan principle we all need to protect.