Most College Faculty Believe Academic Freedom Now At Risk, Survey Finds – Forbes

The majority of college faculty believe academic freedom is under threat according to a new survey.
In a survey administered the week before this month’s presidential election, an overwhelming majority of college and university faculty reported that they believed academic freedom was in jeopardy.
Almost 60% of the 1,133 respondents to a survey conducted by Inside Higher Ed/Hanover Research strongly agreed that academic freedom in higher education was “under threat.” Almost another third “somewhat agreed” it was under threat, bringing the total to 91% who believed academic freedom was at risk.
The nonrandom survey was administered to participants at a range of two-year and four-year institutions responding to an emailed invitation from Hanover Research. It was conducted from September 16 to October 4, and faculty at 739 public and 376 private nonprofit colleges and universities responded. The margin of error was 2.9%.
Most of the respondents were tenured or tenure track faculty (69%). Of the rest, 7% were part-time, non–tenure track faculty; 22% were full-time, non–tenure track instructors; and 3% held other positions. The vast majority (85%) had worked as a faculty member for 10 years or more.
Faculty said they felt academic freedom was threatened in most aspects of their work. For example, 42% agreed that their sense of academic freedom in teaching had declined over the last year, and 22% said their perception of academic freedom had declined in their research activities.
In the area of “extramural speech,” involving the expression of ideas and views outside the classroom such as on social media, 49% of the respondents reported a decrease in their sense of academic freedom.
As a result, faculty reported a decline in how willing they were to engage in certain expressive activities “due to the situation on my campus and/or the broader political environment.” For example, 47% said they were refraining from making certain extramural utterances; 35% said they were not talking about certain topics with students; 26% said they were refraining from bringing up certain topics in class; and 15% were shying away from certain areas in research and publication.
They survey also asked those faculty who believed their academic freedom had declined which topics they felt less free to discuss. The top five areas were:
Political affiliation affected the results. More than half (55%) of Republican respondents—who totaled only 74 of the roughly 1,100 faculty answering the question—said they don’t believe academic freedom is equal for everyone depending on their political affiliation. Only 30 percent of the Democrats said the same thing.
Not surprisingly, given the spate of recent state legislation aimed at higher education diversity initiatives and other campus programs, “a higher percentage of faculty in the South than in other geographic regions said they felt less free than they did a year ago to discuss DEI or abortion,” according to Insider Higher Education.
Also, a larger share of respondents from the South compared to other regions said their general sense of academic freedom had significantly declined in teaching, research or extramural speech.
A larger proportion of women than men said they refrained from making extramural statements (50% vs. 45%) and communicating with students on certain topics (38% compared to 32%). Men and women did not differ in their reports of self-censorship in research and publishing.
The survey allowed respondents to write open-ended answers concerning their thoughts on whether academic freedom was equal across the political spectrum. “Anyone who is not a hard-left progressive is openly mocked and derided by supervisors, during training events by outside consultants and by some particularly outspoken faculty members,” one faculty member wrote.
But another respondent wrote, “In the current political climate, conservative white profs have more freedom;” while someone else stated, “Jewish (Zionist or not) and pro-Israel faculty members are intimidated, disrespected, silenced and marginalized.”
Attention will now shift, of course, to the impact the incoming Trump administration’s higher education agenda will have on these faculty concerns. Given Trump’s statements that he might end the U.S. Department of Education, target diversity, equity and inclusion programs and go after what conservatives perceive to be higher education’s “woke” indoctrination, faculty anxieties about their independence and freedom of expression are only likely to deepen.

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