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Jonathan Zimmerman teaches education and history at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of “Whose America? Culture Wars in the Public Schools” and eight other books.
In Alcoholics Anonymous, the first step toward recovery is to acknowledge that you have a problem. You can’t get better until you admit that you’re not well.
But our universities won’t do that.
Look no further than the recent report from the Foundation for Individual Rights of Expression, or FIRE. Surveying more than 6,000 faculty members at 55 colleges and universities, FIRE found that a quarter of professors felt unable to speak freely for fear of how administrators, colleagues and students might respond. And a third of the surveyed faculty said they had recently toned down their writing for the same reason.
The universities’ response? Crickets.
Our entire model rests on the free exchange of ideas. When the FIRE report came out, however, not a single president of an academic institution said that we are failing to make good on that goal.
Instead, university leaders bit their tongues — just like faculty members do — or released bland statements reaffirming their devotion to open expression and dialogue. Asked to comment about the FIRE report, an official at Columbia University said the school “remains committed to the principles of academic freedom and inclusive pluralism that define a great university.”
Really? Why, then, did two-thirds of surveyed professors at Columbia tell FIRE that they occasionally or often felt they couldn’t express their opinions on campus? That doesn’t sound like freedom to me.
Put simply, university faculty are running scared. And you can’t have a real dialogue — or a real university — when people are afraid to say and write what they think.
“Even as a tenured full professor, I feel pressure to conceal certain opinions,” a University of Texas faculty member said. “The atmosphere in certain academic units can be cult-like and fascistic.”
Another professor said he had been scared to fill out the FIRE survey for fear of losing his job. At today’s universities, it seems, the mere mention of free speech can provoke self-censorship.
As you might guess, given the preponderance of liberals on university faculties, conservative professors are more reluctant to speak their minds. But if you think this fear is just a right-wing thing, think again.
A faculty member at the University of Illinois Chicago said he wanted to sign a petition in support of a ceasefire in Palestine, but he was afraid he’d be doxxed — that is, his personal information would be publicized online — and that the university wouldn’t defend him. And a Black professor in the South noted that his state legislature had moved to ban classroom discussions of racism, which made him wary of addressing the subject with his colleagues.
Dozens of states have tried to restrict how K-12 and university teachers address race and gender, which is the biggest censorship threat to education right now. But our universities won’t be able to resist the attack from outside their gates if they don’t get their own free-speech house in order.
Consider diversity, equity and inclusion, a touchstone of campus controversy in recent years. Sixteen anti-DEI laws were proposed this year, which threaten to restrict what faculty members can say in grant applications and even in course syllabuses. Yet the university’s own culture discourages faculty members from discussing DEI in a free and open manner, as the FIRE report demonstrates.
“You cannot question DEI, cannot reason against DEI, or speak about anything related to DEI,” a University of Michigan professor said. Only people who “support it unquestionably” are allowed to opine about DEI, the professor added.
We haven’t established official bans on free expression, which is what state legislatures are trying to do. Instead, we have created a climate that’s inimical to it.
“One doesn’t fear discipline so much as one fears being shadowbanned, or placed on a blacklist,” a Columbia professor said. “Everything happens through gossip and collusion.”
You never know which words might land you in hot water, or which colleagues might try to burn you. That’s why so many people are afraid to speak up.
So it’s time for our leaders to stand up and state the plain truth: We believe in the free exchange of ideas, but we have done a poor job of protecting it.
Universities should also pledge to defend anyone — faculty member, student and staff member — who feels threatened or intimidated for speaking their mind. Of course, nobody has the right to be insulated from criticism. But everyone should feel free to say what they think.
For the moment, they don’t. And nobody atop our institutions is willing to say that out loud. We should have enough courage to acknowledge the fear that lives among us. That’s the first step on the road to recovery.
