Silence in the Classroom: The 2024 FIRE Faculty Survey Report

Executive Summary

This report explores insights from a national survey of 6,269 tenured, tenure-track, and non-tenure track faculty across 55 four-year colleges and universities in the United States, conducted by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). As the largest survey of faculty ever conducted on this topic, the data reveal faculty attitudes and experiences concerning free expression and academic freedom. While many faculty remain confident in higher education, and few report explicit threats or experiences of discipline for speech, the broader climate reflects that of rampant self-censorship, worry, and fear, particularly among faculty in the political minority. A discussion of these findings follow. The PDF version of the report is accompanied by school-specific results for each of the 55 colleges and universities surveyed. 

Key findings:

1. 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;
2. 14% of faculty suffered discipline or threats of discipline for either their teaching, research, academic talks, or other off-campus speech;
3. 27% of faculty feel unable to speak freely for fear of how students, administrators, or other faculty would respond;
4. 40% of faculty worry about damaging their reputations because someone misunderstands something they have said or done;
5. 23% of faculty worry about losing their jobs because someone misunderstands something they have said or done;
6. 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;
7. 66% of faculty say colleges and universities should not take positions on political and social issues.

Citation

Honeycutt, N. (2024). Silence in the Classroom: The 2024 FIRE Faculty Survey Report. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. https://www.thefire.org/research-learn/silence-classroom-2024-fire-faculty-survey-report

About FIRE

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to defending and sustaining the individual rights of all Americans to free speech and free thought. These rights include freedom of speech, freedom of association, due process, legal equality, religious liberty, and sanctity of conscience — the most essential qualities of liberty. FIRE also recognizes that colleges and universities play a vital role in preserving free thought within a free society. To this end, we place a special emphasis on defending these rights of students and faculty members on our nation’s campuses, including the right to academic freedom for faculty.

For more information, visit thefire.org or @thefireorg on X.

Acknowledgements

Gratitude goes to Sean Stevens for support with questionnaire design and data validation, to Laura Freberg for support with questionnaire design and IRB review, and to Angela C. Erickson and Alex Griswold for editing, and other project support. Additionally, thanks goes to David Volodzko for support with the narrative and copyediting, Jackson Fleagle for designing and creating the school pages, Khalia Abner for designing the pdf report, Jordan Howell for designing the web version of the report, and to the many FIRE research assistants who assisted in building the participant pool. 

Introduction

Kathleen Oveta McElroy was born in Houston, Texas, same as her father, George McElroy. She became a journalist, same as her father. And like him, she has devoted herself to civil rights.

Her father was an American hero who fought the good fight. He served in multiple wars and won medals for heroism. When he came home and the University of Texas rejected him based on segregation laws, he took the fight to court. When he lost, he got a degree in journalism from the historically black Texas Southern University, and fought segregation by reporting on protests and even advising protesters.

George McElroy became the first black columnist at The Houston Post, the largest morning paper in Texas at the time, and was the first black master’s graduate in journalism at the University of Missouri. He went on to interview the likes of Martin Luther King Jr., Fidel Castro, Muhammad Ali, and six different U.S. presidents.

These are big shoes to fill, but Kathleen McElroy learned to love the good fight from her father.

After getting her degree in broadcast journalism from Texas A&M, she got her doctorate from UT Austin, worked as an editor at The New York Times for nearly 20 years, and became director of the same UT journalism department that had rejected her father. Talk about a comeback kid.

In June 2023, Texas A&M offered her the chance to head its newly revived journalism program. At the public signing, she stood before a room of smiling faces.

But no sooner had the ceremony ended than a chorus of complaints began to emerge from the administration, alumni groups, and board of regents members. They criticized her hiring, her previous work involving diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), and her research on race. Arts and Sciences Interim Dean José Luis Bermúdez told McElroy that certain people might force leadership to fire her, and there was nothing he could do to help.

McElroy realized she was in a fixed fight and made the difficult decision to walk away from reviving A&M’s journalism program. In response to the controversy that ensued, A&M launched an investigation into the matter, and Bermúdez and university President Katherine Banks resigned. But McElroy did not give up, and in August, the university paid her $1 million to settle.

The university later released an internal report revealing emails from administrators and regents showing that the hiring process was atypical and that political issues over DEI played a role. The report also showed Bermúdez had told McElroy that being “a black woman who worked at The New York Times” with a DEI background was a problem.

Such blatant discrimination is outrageous. But the problem is worse than many realize.

Free Expression and Academic Freedom on Campus: The Data

To better understand what college and university faculty are currently experiencing on campus, particularly related to free expression and academic freedom issues, FIRE conducted a national survey, and received responses from more than 6,000 faculty across the country. Among them, an incredible 23% say their own departments are “somewhat” or “very” hostile toward people with their political beliefs. Even more alarming, 23% say they worry about being fired over a misunderstanding about something they say or do. 

This means approximately one in four of our nation’s faculty are living in fear of experiencing what happened to McElroy, or something like it. As one professor at Indiana University, Bloomington, told us, “Although I am more in the middle of the road and have viewpoints on both sides, I feel like I need to keep my mouth shut or I would be ostracized or fired.”

But it gets worse.

Not only are faculty like McElroy concerned they will be targeted for their viewpoints, but some are disproportionately more afraid, and certain views are more targeted than others. Only 17% of liberal faculty say they at least occasionally hide their political views in order to keep their jobs, compared to a staggering 55% of conservative faculty who say the same. And this fear is more prevalent among faculty who do not have tenure than those that do.

Furthermore, and perhaps closely associated with these findings, faculty are skeptical that conservatives would even be welcome in their department. Specifically, while nearly three-quarters of faculty said a liberal individual would be a positive fit in their department, only one in five said the same about a conservative individual. While there are likely differences between academic disciplines, overall most faculty indicate that conservatives would be out of place in their department. And in higher education, “poor fit” can usually be translated as “not admitted,” “not hired,” or “not promoted.”

These disparities and differences may be emblematic of deeper issues within parts of the academy, as underlying these findings is the reality that ideological diversity within the academy continues to shrink. ^[1] Ample prior research has documented hostility, stigma, and willingness to discriminate among university faculty,^[2] but it is unclear if such experiences are unique to faculty, or if some students may be aware of this dynamic and perhaps even have similar experiences. 

If students, or even early career academics, lack role models or faculty they can trust — perhaps because certain faculty are too few in number, or perhaps because these faculty fear for their job and keep quiet — they may fail to receive sufficient mentoring, research opportunities, or other intangibles that are essential for success in college and advancement to graduate school, placing them at an immediate point of disadvantage.

“Conservative students have often shared things with me because they know they can trust me,” a professor at Kansas State University said. “One student came to me and said he was dropping a class in another college. His comment was that the professor’s rant on day one basically told him that the professor ‘hates people like us.’ In my opinion, no student — liberal or conservative — should ever feel that way.”

Freedom of speech is crucial in an academic setting because the open exchange of ideas is the best way we have of discerning what is true — and because when you silence speech for political reasons, you risk silencing facts that might just be politically incorrect.

Consider the case of biology professor Johnson Varkey, whom St. Philip’s College reportedly fired for saying X and Y chromosomes determine biological sex. 

According to a letter sent to the college by First Liberty, a religious nonprofit and legal organization representing Varkey, Varkey explained chromosomal sex determination during his Human Anatomy and Physiology class in November 2022. Four students walked out of class and the college later told Varkey he was under investigation for an ethics violation before terminating his contract.

FIRE asked the college to reverse course and meet its First Amendment obligations, which it did by reinstating Varkey a year later. But stories like this are all too common. And this creates a terrible chilling effect among faculty in America. In fact, more than one-third (35%) of faculty say they have recently toned down their writing for fear of causing controversy. But it has not always been this way. When researchers asked this identical question at the end of the McCarthy era — during the Cold War when there was substantial pressure to restrict faculty expression — only 9% of social scientists answered this way.^[3]

But it’s not just that faculty are toning down their writing for fear of causing a controversy. Faculty today are also preemptively silencing themselves in their own research and writing.

Depending on the context, at least one out of every five faculty report that they are likely to self-censor in some way, whether it be in conversations, or in the topics they choose to study and investigate, in their academic writing, in the talks they give, what they say in email or online, or even in what they discuss in class while teaching.

Importantly, too, faculty are not conflating self-censorship with being polite or professional — that would be categorically different.^[4] 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. 

How can faculty help students reach their maximum potential while holding themselves back?

Consider the following comments and the suffocating climate of fear in which so many professors appear to struggle. As one Texas A&M professor reported, “I am starting (for the first time in my career) to censor myself out of a desire for self-preservation. I say nothing at all in faculty meetings now, if I attend at all.”

According to another professor at UT Austin, “Even as a tenured full professor, I feel pressure to conceal certain opinions. The atmosphere in certain academic units can be cult-like and fascistic and I really feel I have to pick my battles.”

Instead of speaking openly and pursuing bold new ideas, many American faculty appear to keep their heads low and live in fear. In fact, 27% of faculty say they often feel they can’t express their opinions because of how administrators, other faculty, or students might respond. And this jumps to 64% when adding in faculty who said they “occasionally” feel this way.

When faculty were asked to share a salient moment when they felt unable to express their opinion because of how others might respond, the most frequently cited topic in examples shared was DEI or diversity-related issues. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict was also frequently cited.

One professor at the University of Virginia said that when the university decided to install a DEI administrator, “our Dean stated flatly, and publicly, that they wished they could do away with tenure protections and fire anyone who disagreed.”

“You cannot question DEI,” said a University of Michigan professor, “cannot reason against DEI, or speak about anything related to DEI (unless you constantly virtue signal and support it unquestionably). DEI is the McCarthyism of the current times.”

What might undergird or drive this climate of fear? For some it is administrators, governing boards, or politicians, as many faculty believe these groups are at fault for escalating tensions over campus speech. 

“The top administration will do nothing to offend the politically appointed board of regents in my state,” said one University of Georgia professor. 

Though most faculty (85%) report their college administration never pressures them to avoid researching controversial topics, a consistent cohort reports self-censoring in conversations with administrators on campus and a lack of trust in how their administration would handle speech-related issues. Specifically, one-in-three faculty (36%) say it is unclear that their college administration protects free speech on campus, and a quarter (28%) say they do not think their administration would defend a speaker’s rights to express their views if a controversy emerged about the speech being offensive.

Alternatively, students may play a role in faculty self-censorship. Overall 42% of faculty report being likely to self-censor in classroom discussion or lectures. This is consistent with other research using FIRE’s Scholars Under Fire data, which suggests students are typically the central actors in targeting incidents,^[5] particularly when these incidents come from the left. And in one study, upwards of 70% of students reported thinking that professors who say something offensive should be reported. As such, some faculty now say they “prep longer, worry more, and don’t talk about potentially controversial topics.”^[6]

These self-censorship dynamics, according to participants in this study, are more prevalent and salient to conservative faculty, but also more pronounced for faculty who have weaker job protections. Larger proportions of faculty without tenure indicated they would likely self-censor across all of the professional contexts asked about in the survey.

If professors without tenure are more likely to remain silent, this suggests faculty are likely self-censoring in order to protect their very livelihoods.

“After speaking up during a faculty meeting,” said one Cornell professor, “a senior member of the faculty pulled me into their office and told me, for the sake of my tenure track vote, that I needed to ‘shut the f*** up.’”

But it is also worth noting that even notable percentages of professors with tenure indicate they would censor themselves, suggesting that many of these faculty simply do not believe that their universities will honor the terms of their tenure if they offend the wrong people.

And although self-censorship appears, on average, to impact conservative professors more than liberal ones, that is not the whole story. A professor at a flagship state university in the South told us, “I am an untenured Black professor in a state that is trying to ban discussions of racism. There are many things I don’t feel comfortable saying to my colleagues or in public, at risk of backlash from our ultra-conservative legislature.”

As explored and discussed in other research and writing,^[7] higher education operates under the shadow of a social-reputational system, whereby the success of individual academics is highly contingent on favorable evaluations from others at every important career milestone.^[8] Thus, even if a scholar may hold views largely consistent with the majority, the primary incentive system in higher education doesn’t encourage faculty to research, publish, give talks, or perhaps even teach about topics that may be controversial. Such pressures are often more acute for faculty without tenure, who are encouraged to wait till they have tenure to explore certain topics. Because, as one University of Nebraska professor was told, “being outspoken could jeopardize my future employment.” The data herein appear to bear this out. 

The reality of this pressure to conceal is further reinforced by faculty-reported experiences of discipline. One out of every seven faculty (14%) say they have faced discipline or threats of discipline for either their teaching, research, talks, or other off-campus speech. Though as one Columbia professor observed, “One doesn’t fear discipline so much as one fears being shadowbanned, or placed on a blacklist. Everything happens through gossip and collusion.”

What’s more, although one-in-seven respondents having faced discipline or threats of discipline may seem low, if this rate is consistent even within just the broader population of half a million full-time faculty in the United States, then incidents are exponentially higher than the already more than 1,300 and rising incidents documented in FIRE’s Scholars Under Fire Database. 

If faculty are fearful of being misunderstood, or are being disciplined or threatened with discipline, this only makes it more difficult to discuss important yet controversial issues. If faculty like McElroy are canceled for their affiliations and research interests, or others like Dorian Abbot are prevented from giving talks in their areas of expertise because of other views they hold, there remains a diminishing incentive for academics to speak openly.

Over the past year, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been front of mind for many. It is one of the most pressing and significant issues of our time. Yet 70% of faculty say they have difficulty talking openly and honestly about this topic on their campus — and this approached 90% on campuses such as Columbia, Stanford, and Rutgers (see individual school pages). Many faculty also say they have difficulty talking openly about racial inequality (51%), transgender rights (49%), affirmative action (47%), and the presidential election (41%). 

If faculty do not feel comfortable — for any number of reasons — discussing important issues of the day, students lose a valuable opportunity to learn about the world around them.

“The universities have traded ideas for ideology,” a University of Michigan professor told us. “I never feel comfortable speaking about issues related to DEI or transgender issues. The university I work at has adopted a stance on both of these issues that cannot be question[ed] without fear of reprisal, sanction, or ostracization from the academic community.”

Meanwhile at the University of Illinois, Chicago, another professor observed, “I wanted to sign a letter in support of the call for a ceasefire in Palestine, but I didn’t because I was afraid of being doxxed for supporting Palestine. It’s not that I expected anyone at the university to dox me, but I don’t feel confident that the university would defend or protect me if it happened.”

Yet there remains a glimmer of hope. 

Although only a little more than a quarter (27%) of faculty think academic freedom is secure on their campuses, many (45%) have “quite a lot” or “a great deal” of confidence in U.S. colleges and universities — much more than the American public. Faculty may lack faith that academia will uphold its foundational principle of exchanging ideas, but they remain invested in it.

Given the state of the faculty, what can institutions do to preserve and strengthen academic freedom, and foster campus climates supportive of free expression? 

First, universities should adopt official positions of institutional neutrality on social and political issues — something a supermajority of faculty support at both the institutional (66%) and departmental (70%) level. When colleges adopt official institutional positions on issues outside their mission, they risk establishing a campus orthodoxy that chills speech and undermines the knowledge-generating process. By not tethering itself to a particular position, on the other hand, the neutral college welcomes the fullest range of views, and reaps the benefit of the wisdom produced by the resulting debate. As the University of Chicago’s “Kalven Report” puts it, “The university is the home and sponsor of critics; it is not itself the critic.”

“Public universities are funded using public funds,” said one professor at Clemson University, “so I STRONGLY believe they should maintain neutrality. It is not mine or the university’s role to indoctrinate or influence. We are simply here to share knowledge so that the receiver can use that knowledge how THEY want to use it.”

An additional option is to commit to a version of the Report of the Committee on Freedom of Expression at the University of Chicago, better known as the “Chicago Statement.” 

Or not sanction faculty for their contrarian arguments.

On that note, consider the case of computer science professor Stuart Reges. When the University of Washington encouraged faculty to include a statement in each course syllabus acknowledging that the university sits on land once held by the Coast Salish tribes, Reges decided to express his disagreement.

“I acknowledge that by the labor theory of property,” Reges began his parody statement, “the Coast Salish people can claim historical ownership of almost none of the land currently occupied by the University of Washington.”

But when a handful of students and staff complained, the university removed his syllabus from the course website, encouraged students to file complaints against him, siphoned away his students to a newly created second offering of his class to be taught by another professor, and launched a year-long investigation into Reges, an award-winning professor, over allegations that his statement violated university anti-harassment policy.

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.

With FIRE’s help, Reges stood up for his academic freedom. FIRE filed suit in federal court demanding that the university stop retaliating. The district court ruled in favor of the university, misapplying Supreme Court precedent to find that the university’s interest in preventing “disruption” outweighed Reges’ interest in expressing his opinion.

Thankfully, Reges has received support from civil liberties organizations across the country in his appeal before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. 

The outcome of Reges’ appeal in the Ninth Circuit will have national ramifications, but already his case serves to illustrate the need for colleges and universities to explicitly encourage conversation on important and often controversial topics, including topics such as DEI and the efficacy of DEI statements for faculty hiring and promotion.

In recent years, colleges have required faculty and students to demonstrate their commitment to DEI, which has been subject to heated debate. As FIRE and others have articulated, these requirements too easily function as ideological litmus tests that threaten enrollment, employment, and advancement opportunities for those who dissent from prevailing views, or even for those who may hold unorthodox views. Attempts to require fealty to any given ideology or political commitment — whether “patriotism” or “social justice” — should not take root at any college committed to expressive freedom.

Similar to findings in our previous research,^[9] 50% of faculty think it is rarely or never justifiable for universities to make faculty candidates submit statements pledging commitment to DEI before being considered for a job.^[10] And 52% think it is rarely or never acceptable for universities to make faculty do so in order to be considered for promotion or tenure. 

Ideological differences also emerged. Honing in on DEI statements for hiring, most moderate and nearly all conservative faculty indicated statements pledging commitment to DEI are “never” or “rarely” justifiable. Liberal faculty, on the other hand, were mixed, nearly half saying the statements are “often” or “always” justifiable, with a third saying they are “never” or “rarely” justifiable.

“Our campus adopted DEI statements as part of the hiring and promotion processes,” said a professor at UC Davis. “They are considered ‘voluntary’ in the promotion process, but to not submit one would be tantamount to admitting that you don’t believe in the goals and implementation of DEI policies. They are essentially required for promotion and to discuss the opinion that these statements amount to loyalty oaths would be career suicide.”

Or as a University of Washington professor explained, “Any criticism of mandatory DEI statements as conditions of employment or promotion are silenced at all levels.”

Despite how prevalent DEI statements are for faculty hiring, DEI statements are not a settled issue among faculty. As such, more creative and innovative solutions for DEI are needed, but we will know we are on the right path when our efforts do not encroach on academic freedom or cause some of our finest minds to live in fear.

Curiosity, dissent, devil’s advocacy, thought experimentation, and talking across lines of difference are all essential in higher education — both for faculty to model, and for students to learn. Institutions would benefit from clearly explaining and prioritizing these values in the hiring and admissions processes so there is not a mismatch between expectations and the reality of a liberal education.

Conclusion

For many college and university faculty — especially those without tenure or those in the ideological minority — the findings herein indicate that concerns over self-censorship in academia are not overblown. Many faculty engage in self-censorship in professional contexts, in conversations, and report not being able to have an open and honest conversation on campus about important issues of the day. 

These experiences are not universal — numerous faculty do not self-censor and have highly positive experiences on their campus. But many other faculty fear damaging their reputations and losing their jobs, and more today than during the McCarthy era report toning down their writing because they are worried it might cause too much controversy. 

For some, the fear and worry is quite substantial. As one professor from a small liberal arts college told us, “I almost avoided filling out the survey for fear of losing my job somehow‚ [and I] waited about two weeks before getting the courage to take the risk in filling it out.”

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. 

A climate of this type is not sustainable for higher education, at least not if higher education desires to uphold its truthseeking and knowledge-producing mission. The academy needs courageous faculty who are not afraid to research, write about, or teach topics that some may shy away from because they are labeled as controversial — to ask and investigate unasked and unanswered questions. And the academy needs more faculty who are not afraid to support colleagues who themselves are afraid, or who have been targeted and have come under fire for their speech or academic endeavors. Consistent support from institutional administrations would not hurt either.

FIRE, too, stands ready to help protect and defend free expression and academic freedom within higher education, in part by continuing to provide data illuminating the climate and experiences of today’s college and university faculty. 

In his inaugural address to the campus, Stanford University President Jonathan Levin shared his aspirations for the campus, stating that “the university’s purpose is not political action or social justice. It is to create an environment in which learning thrives.” Levin’s hope is that the university would “be open-minded … foster[ing] a culture that embraces inquiry and curiosity” and “be open to new ideas.”

If increasing numbers of colleges and universities also pursue these values, it is likely that future surveys of faculty concerning free expression and academic freedom will report substantially different findings. 

Methodology

The FIRE Faculty Survey was fielded from March 4 to May 13, 2024. No donors took part in any part of the project. All methods received IRB approval from the Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo Institutional Review Board prior to data collection, and the instrument was hosted on a secure Qualtrics site. 

Sample

A national sample of 6,269 tenured, tenure track, and non-tenure track faculty participants was recruited from 55 U.S. colleges and universities (see Map, and Table 1). These 55 colleges and universities constituted the first set of universities sampled by FIRE in 2020 for the first iteration of the College Free Speech Rankings (“CFSR”) and include most elite private institutions and many flagship state universities. Within each university, participants were recruited from all undergraduate-facing departments. Faculty from professional schools such as law schools, medical schools, veterinary schools were excluded, though faculty from these schools who hold joint appointments in other departments may have been included. For each department, publicly available department web pages and online rosters were used to create a list of eligible faculty participants. Participants had to be clearly identified as active faculty within the department. As such, emeritus individuals, graduate students, and staff were not included. Those with invalid email addresses, and those who had no email address listed were not included. 

In total, a list of 112,510 potential faculty participants was generated. Following other recent studies of university faculty^[11] it was anticipated that approximately 2-7% would participate. The final sample reflects a 5.57% response rate. See Table 1 for the number of responses received from each institution.

Measures

Using as guides questionnaires implemented in similar research,^[12] a modified and expanded instrument was constructed (see toplines for question wording). 

Procedure

The author emailed participants with an invitation to participate in the study. The email was followed by a reminder email to participants who had not yet started or completed the survey. Upon opening the survey online, participants were presented with the informed consent. Upon agreeing to the informed consent, participants completed the survey. 

Sample Demographics

Demographic frequencies can be found in Table 2. 

Survey Items and Topline Results

Survey questions, and associated topline results, can be found in the PDF version of this report.

Notes

[1] Honeycutt, N. (2024). The politics of university faculty. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/dnxqh 

[2] Adekoya, R., Kaufmann, E., & Simpson, T. (2020). Academic freedom in the UK: Protecting viewpoint diversity. Policy Exchange. https://policyexchange.org.uk/publication/academic-freedom-in-the-uk-2/

Honeycutt, N. (2022). Manifestations of political bias in the academy. Unpublished dissertation, Rutgers University. https://doi.org/10.7282/t3-2y4z-7009

Honeycutt, N., & Freberg, L. (2017). The liberal and conservative experience across academic disciplines: An extension of Inbar and Lammers. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 8(2), 115–123. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550616667617

Inbar, Y., & Lammers, J. (2012). Political diversity in social and personality psychology. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 7(5), 496–503.

Kaufmann, E. (2021). Academic Freedom in Crisis: Punishment, Political Discrimination, and Self-Censorship. CSPI. https://cspicenter.org/reports/academicfreedom/

Peters, U., Honeycutt, N., Block, A. D., & Jussim, L. (2020). Ideological diversity, hostility, and discrimination in philosophy. Philosophical Psychology, 1–38. https://doi.org/10.1080/09515089.2020.1743257

[3] Lazarsfeld & Thielens, Jr. (1958).

[4] When asked about self-censorship in the survey, faculty participants were presented with the following:

“This next series of questions asks you about self-censorship in different settings. For the purpose of these questions, self-censorship is defined as follows:

Refraining from sharing certain views because you fear social (e.g., exclusion from social events), professional (e.g., losing job or promotion), legal (e.g., prosecution or fine), or violent (e.g., assault) consequences, whether in person or remotely (e.g., by phone or online), and whether the consequences come from state or non-state sources.”

[5] A targeting incident as a campus controversy involving efforts to investigate, penalize or otherwise professionally sanction a scholar for engaging in constitutionally protected forms of speech. See the SUF Database Userguide for more information. 

[6] Anderson, S., Gravett, S., & McCaughey, M. (2023). “I Prep Longer, Worry More, and Don’t Talk about Potentially Controversial Topics in My Field”: The Impact of Student Complaints on Faculty Work. Academic Labor: Research and Artistry, 7(1).

[7] Honeycutt, N., & Jussim, L. (2022). On the Connection Between Bias and Censorship in Academia. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/4f9va 

[8] Milestones, or the need for favorable evaluations, may include admission to graduate school, publishing in peer-reviewed journals, being invited to give talks, presenting at conferences, obtaining fellowships or grants, receiving awards, getting a job, attaining tenure and promotions. 

[9] Honeycutt, N., Stevens, S.T., & Kaufmann, E. (2023). The Academic Mind in 2022: What Faculty Think About Free Expression and Academic Freedom on Campus. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. https://www.thefire.org/research-learn/academic-mind-2022-what-faculty-think-about-free-expression-and-academic-freedom 

[10] As some may point out, DEI statements are not always required, and are not always asking candidates to pledge their commitment to DEI. Future surveys should explore this nuance by also asking faculty to indicate how justifiable DEI statements are, e.g., if offered as a way for faculty to discuss their actions and efforts, if offered as an optional or voluntary component, and/or if used as a screening tool/device.

[11] Honeycutt, N., Stevens, S. T., & Kaufmann, E. (2023). The Academic Mind in 2022: What Faculty Think About Free Expression and Academic Freedom on Campus. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. https://www.thefire.org/research-learn/academic-mind-2022-what-faculty-think-about-free-expression-and-academic-freedom

Kaufmann, E. (2021). Academic Freedom in Crisis: Punishment, Political Discrimination, and Self-Censorship. CSPI. https://cspicenter.org/reports/academicfreedom/ 

[12] Honeycutt, N. (2022). Manifestations of political bias in the academy. Unpublished dissertation, Rutgers University. https://doi.org/10.7282/t3-2y4z-7009 

Honeycutt, N., & Freberg, L. (2017). The Liberal and Conservative Experience Across Academic Disciplines: An Extension of Inbar and Lammers. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 8(2), 115–123. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550616667617 

Honeycutt, N., Stevens, S. T., & Kaufmann, E. (2023). The Academic Mind in 2022: What Faculty Think About Free Expression and Academic Freedom on Campus. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. https://www.thefire.org/research-learn/academic-mind-2022-what-faculty-think-about-free-expression-and-academic-freedom 

Stevens, S. T. (2023). 2024 College Free Speech Rankings. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. https://www.thefire.org/sites/default/files/2023/09/CFSR%202024_final_updated.pdf