The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) conducted a survey of more than 6,000 tenured, tenure-track, and non-tenure track faculty at 55 colleges and universities in the United States and found an alarming trend of self-censorship, especially among conservatives.
“It’s not just that faculty are toning down their writing for fear of causing a controversy,” reads FIRE’s annual faculty report, which was released on Thursday. “Faculty today are also preemptively silencing themselves in their own research and writing.”
The survey was conducted from March 4 to May 13, 2024 and found that at least one out of every five faculty is likely to self-censor in professional contexts. Over 40 percent of respondents said they self-censor in classroom lectures or discussions, while 56 percent said they self-censor online. One out of every seven faculty say they have faced discipline or threats of discipline for their teaching, research, talks, or other off-campus speech.
One in four faculty reported self-censoring in conversations with administrators on campus, other faculty, or their students either “a couple times a week” or “nearly every day.” Nearly half of conservative faculty reported feeling that they can’t express their opinion on a subject because of how the administration, students, or other faculty might respond; only 19 percent of liberal faculty members said the same.
“Importantly, too, faculty are not conflating self-censorship with being polite or professional — that would be categorically different,” says the report. “Rather, consistent proportions of faculty report that they are likely to refrain from sharing their views in various professional and conversational contexts for fear of social, professional, legal, or violent consequences.”
Very few survey participants said that conservatives would be welcome in their academic departments. Nearly 40 percent of respondents said a conservative would be a “very/somewhat poor fit” in their departments, just over 40 percent said a conservative would be a “neither poor nor positive fit,” and just 20 percent said a conservative would be a “very/somewhat positive fit.” By contrast, a mere 3 percent of participants said that a liberal would be a “very/somewhat poor fit” for their department, 26 percent said a liberal would be a “neither poor nor positive fit,” and an overwhelming 71 percent said a liberal would be a “very/somewhat positive fit.”
When it comes to DEI statements in hiring, 16 percent said that is “sometimes justifiable,” 34 percent of faculty says that is “often” or “always justifiable,” and 50 percent said that is “never” or “rarely justifiable.” Conservatives were more consistently opposed to DEI statements: 85 percent of conservative faculty said DEI statements are “never” or “rarely justifiable,” while only 35 percent of liberal faculty said the same.
The survey found that faculty deemed certain topics more difficult to speak about, with 70 percent saying they have “difficulty having an open and honest conversation” about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Roughly half of participants said the same about racial inequality, “transgender rights,” and affirmative action. Almost of a quarter of participants said the same about academic freedom.
The FIRE survey also found overwhelming support for institutional neutrality on social and political issues. Over 60 percent of faculty said that the colleges and universities should not take positions on political and social issues, while 70 percent of faculty said that official university units (like departments) should not take positions on social or political issues.