For colleges and universities to prosper, they must be places of rich, free-flowing debate. If higher education is the laboratory for creating the next class of responsible citizens , we must ensure that campuses are places for unfettered discourse. Only when our ideas and values are challenged do we become more informed and more empathetic to the world around us.

College and university faculty bear the weight of ensuring these values are carried out on campus. However, I am deeply concerned that they will soon not be up to the task. Recently, small numbers of faculty have organized groups like the Heterodox Academy and the Academic Freedom Alliance. Some faculty today have started to push back against administrative overreach . Nonetheless, the reality facing students today and going forward is that faculty are not going to be as committed to open expression as one would hope.

A new s urvey of over 1400 faculty from public and private four-year universities in 2022 from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) sheds light on the future of higher education. More than half (55%) of faculty said that it is never acceptable for students to shout down a speaker during their talk, compared to 38% of students. Four in five faculty members (80%) said it is never acceptable for students to block entry into a campus speech, while two-thirds (63%) of students felt the same way. Ninety-two percent of faculty stated that it is never acceptable for students to use violence to stop a campus speech with a lower 80% of students holding the same beliefs. Faculty appear to be more supportive of allowing speech and expression than the students they teach—a virtue faculty should espouse and cherish, for dialogue leads to learning even when it upsets feelings or challenge biases.

While promising, the survey does not reveal how generational changes in department operations has radically altered how professors see the open exchange of ideas. Over the past decade or so, many academic departments have embraced ideological views in their teaching and research, promoting social justice–laden scholarship as a way of correcting the wrongs of the past. Unsurprisingly, many departments have developed left-of-center academic monocultures, becoming unfriendly to differing opinions. Newer cohorts of faculty are adding to the academic echo chamber.

Disturbingly, my peer cohort of younger faculty find it more acceptable for students to use illiberal tactics to stop a speaker than their older colleagues. Among faculty 35 years old and under, 37% of faculty said that students shouting down a speaker is never acceptable, 59% said blocking entry is never acceptable, and 79% said using violence is never acceptable. These troubling figures are similar to the student results .

In contrast, these percentages are much higher for faculty over 55 years old. Sixty-five percent of older faculty report that shouting down a speaker during their talk to prevent them from speaking on campus is never acceptable—a 28-point difference. And the difference in the numbers for blocking other students from attending a speech (27 points) or using violence (18 points) is quite significant. Moreover, the percentage of faculty members from 36 to 45 years old who said students blocking entry to a campus speech (77%) or using violence to stop it (92%) is never acceptable is considerably higher than those 35 and under who said the same.

Mixing age with ideology reveals even more pronounced support for illiberal attitudes. Among liberal faculty 35 and under, only 23% indicated that shouting down a speaker is never acceptable, 43% said the same for blocking entry, and 64% for using violence to stop a campus speech. In stark contrast, the percentages of conservative faculty 35 and under who indicated it was never acceptable for students to use these tactics are 88%, 93%, and 100%, respectively. Moderate faculty in this age group were also much more likely than their conservative colleagues to endorse the acceptability of these tactics.

In fact, young liberal faculty differed significantly from older liberal faculty on these measures. For liberal faculty over 55, 51 percent indicated that shouting down a speaker is never acceptable, 83% indicated that blocking entry was never acceptable, and 96% said the same for using violence to stop a campus speech—considerably higher numbers than among young liberals.

Illiberalism runs deep among young liberal faculty members, and their views regrettably resemble those of their students rather than their more senior peers. As newer and far less tolerant numbers of professors replace older faculty, colleges and universities may be in true crisis if the higher education enterprise destroys its core values. There is still time to course correct. But, students, trustees, donors, alumni, and the public must demand better from the faculty today.

This article originally appeared in the AEIdeas blog and is reprinted with kind permission from the American Enterprise Institute.