A recent survey published by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) revealed that many professors across the country are “uncomfortable” talking about controversial issues on campus. Notably, they’re afraid that their personal opinions may come back and bite them — despite the constitutional protection of free speech.

Last week, the 2024 FIRE Faculty Survey Report titled “Silence in the Classroom” was released. It was conducted between March 4 and May 13 on 6,269 faculty employees from 55 colleges and universities throughout the U.S. Some of the topics the survey included the Israel-Gaza conflict, affirmative action, the 2024 presidential election, abortion, gender inequality, hate speech, religion, police misconduct, gun control, LGBT activism, and free speech.

After analyzing the results, the report concluded, “Academic freedom may technically exist, but many faculty appear to lack faith that it will be there to protect them — their work, their reputations, or their jobs — in times of need. For many, the risks today are just too high.” Concerned with colleges being able to have “open and honest conversation,” the report also noted that a “climate” in which teachers are “uncomfortable” to discuss significant issues “is not sustainable for higher education … if higher education desires to uphold its truth-seeking and knowledge-producing mission.”

Some of the key findings related to academic freedom are as follows:

• 35% of faculty say they recently toned down their writing for fear of controversy, compared to 9% of faculty who said the same during the McCarthy era;
• 14% of faculty suffered discipline or threats of discipline for either their teaching, research, academic talks, or other off-campus speech;
• 27% of faculty feel unable to speak freely for fear of how students, administrators, or other faculty would respond;
• 40% of faculty worry about damaging their reputations because someone misunderstands something they have said or done;
• 23% of faculty worry about losing their jobs because someone misunderstands something they have said or done;
• 50% of faculty say it is rarely or never justified to require faculty job candidates to submit statements pledging commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion;
• 66% of faculty say colleges and universities should not take positions on political and social issues.

Concerning specific cultural issues, 70% of the respondents said they experienced hardship when tackling the war in the Middle East. Over half felt the same way about their attempts to address racial equity. At least 49% struggled to facilitate conversation regarding transgenderism. As The Christian Post reported, a total of “27% of faculty believed they could not express their opinion on a certain subject because of concerns about how other faculty, students, and the administration would respond.” Conservative professors expressed greater concern than those who were moderate or liberal.

These results put a spotlight on what the survey classified as “self-censorship,” in which teachers are choosing to stay silent out of “worry and fear” — particularly when a teacher believes they fall into “the political minority.” The report emphasized, “When demands for censorship arise, university leaders must remind their campus community that free speech is essential to learning and to the mission of the institution. When leaders do this boldly, clearly, early, and consistently, censorship demands dissipate. When leaders fail to do so — or when they give into demands for censorship — the demands grow and future calls for censorship are incentivized.”

Someone who pays close attention to what happens in the classroom is Family Research Council’s Meg Kilgannon, who serves as a senior fellow in Education Studies. She highlighted a statement from former President Donald Trump during his first term. In an executive order, he wrote:

“In particular, my Administration seeks to promote free and open debate on college and university campuses. Free inquiry is an essential feature of our Nation’s democracy, and it promotes learning, scientific discovery, and economic prosperity. We must encourage institutions to appropriately account for this bedrock principle in their administration of student life and to avoid creating environments that stifle competing perspectives, thereby potentially impeding beneficial research and undermining learning.”

As evidenced by FIRE’s survey results, there’s a significant issue in the realm of “free and open debate” concerning higher education. According to Kilgannon, “The beginning of making something ‘unthinkable’ is to make it ‘unsayable.’” As she told The Washington Stand, “The progressive ideologies that have taken over academia undermine free expression and inquiry to maintain control over acceptable thought and speech.” At the end of the day, she concluded, “This is the opposite of academic engagement and anathema to true freedom of thought, expression, and even worship.”