Nearly half of college professors feel uncomfortable talking about the topic of so-called “transgender rights” on campus as concerns remain about the state of free speech in higher education, a new survey reveals.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, formerly the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, released its 2024 FIRE Faculty Survey Report on Thursday. The data in the report, titled “Silence in the Classroom,” is based on responses collected from 6,269 faculty working at 55 colleges and universities in the United States between March 4 and May 13.
“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,” the report concluded. “A climate of this type is not sustainable for higher education, at least not if higher education desires to uphold its truth-seeking and knowledge-producing mission.”
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The report asked respondents about their ability to engage in an “open and honest conversation” about certain hot-button topics on campus.
A majority (70%) answered in the affirmative when asked if they experienced difficulty discussing the Israel-Gaza conflict, while slightly more than half (51%) said the same about the topic of racial inequality. Just under one-half (49%) of those surveyed reported difficulty engaging in debate about the topic of transgenderism.
Smaller but not insignificant percentages of respondents reported experiencing difficulty talking about affirmative action (47%), the presidential election (41%), abortion (38%), gender inequality (37%), hate speech (35%), religion (34%), police misconduct (31%), gun control (31%), gay rights (28%) and freedom of speech (27%).
Less than one-quarter of professors identified academic freedom (24%), sexual assault (24%), climate change (21%), economic inequality (21%), China (19%) and crime (19%) as topics they had difficulty discussing.
The survey also showed a wide disparity in views about the state of free speech on campus based on a professor’s political ideology.
Overall, 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.
Nearly half of conservative professors (47%) expressed this concern compared to just 29% of their moderate counterparts and 19% of their liberal peers. When examining the trend of self-censorship, the report found that 32% of conservative professors were likely to self-censor the topics they investigated compared to 25% of moderate professors and 15% of liberal professors.
Conservative professors were also more likely to engage in self-censorship when it comes to their academic publications (42%) than moderate (34%) and liberal (21%) professors. A majority of conservative professors (57%) censored their outside talks as did smaller shares of moderate (47%) and liberal professors (34%). Similarly, a majority of conservative professors (58%) said they censored their lectures or discussions in the classroom while less than half of moderate (48%) and liberal (38%) professors said the same.
Even though at least half of professors belonging to each ideological subgroup told FIRE that they self-censor their emails, social media and other types of similar communications, the share of conservative professors who engage in this type of self-censorship (69%) is still higher than the percentage of moderate (62%) and liberal professors (50%) who do the same.
“The academy needs courageous faculty who are not afraid to research, write about, or teach topics that some many shy away from because they are labeled as controversial — to ask and investigate unasked and unanswered questions,” the report stressed. “The academy needs more faculty who are not afraid to support colleagues who themselves are afraid, or who have been targeted and come under fire for their speech or academic endeavors.”
Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: ryan.foley@christianpost.com
