To what degree are faculty facing challenges to academic freedom in their instructional practices? Are there topics they avoid when talking to their fellow faculty or students? Do they feel safe on campus and supported by their institution?

These are some of the topics we probed in a special section of a national survey of US Faculty fielded earlier this year. The full report from that survey, which explores the services available to support instruction, the materials and tools faculty use in their teaching, and where more institutional support would be valuable, will be published later this summer. Today, we’re excited to release the findings from the survey’s deep dive on censorship and academic freedom.

During the time period this survey was in the field, anti-DEI legislation had been passed or enacted in 12 states. Additionally, two months earlier university presidents had been questioned by a Congressional committee about their responses to antisemitism on campus. This context informed our survey design on the topic, considering the current political landscape and legislative actions. We wanted to understand if instructors are changing their instructional practices and the degree to which they feel comfortable discussing controversial topics.

Across a number of markers, we find that faculty are not raising concerns about their academic freedom, but that there are differences in responses based on institutional type, discipline, and demographic subgroups. Our primary findings are:

  • The majority of instructors do not report feeling unsafe or uncomfortable discussing or teaching sensitive topics; however, initial data indicates there are some differences based on institutional type, discipline, and demographic subgroups that suggest the need for further research.
  • Only a relatively small percentage of instructors agreed or strongly agreed that they avoid teaching or talking about controversial topics in the classroom for any reason, with one in five instructors avoiding discussing conflict in the Middle East and abortion and contraception.
  • Nearly a third of instructors report that they do not face academic freedom challenges and do not need support with such challenges. Those who are looking for help want frameworks or direct support for engaging students constructively on sensitive issues, advocating for academic freedom, or understanding how their university is responding to new government policies or regulations.
  • While roughly a third of instructors are looking for frameworks and direct support from their institutions, they are more likely to turn to their peers. Instructors are also mixed when it comes to whether they believe their institution’s culture enables constructive conversations on sensitive issues, suggesting a wariness among instructors in their institution’s ability to foster civil discourse.

We recognize that this exploratory, pulse-type quartet of questions has several limitations. Most immediate is the issue that the questions as written do not allow for differentiating between the various motivations to self-censor instructors may have. Second, because of low sample sizes we were not able to disaggregate the results more fully by gender identity or by race and ethnicity. Future research would benefit from more robust data collection focused specifically on LGBTQIA+ faculty and faculty of color.

Yet while the data from this short four-question module is merely a snapshot in a rapidly changing landscape, we hope these findings will help provide data to ground conversations about censorship, identity, and policy impacts on higher education. They may also help to orient future research on the demographic dimensions of campus climate, employment conditions, and educational equity in postsecondary education.