A new study finds self-censorship is threatening free speech on college campuses.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression is out with its 2024 report, and it found overall a third of faculty members reported toning down their writings to avoid controversy, much like in the height of McCarthyism.
Nathan Honeycutt is the chief author of the report and told us more.
“Maybe some faculty might have been thinking, ‘Well, I’m not a communist, but what if the dynamics change? And now these rules that are being used to target communists are used to target me,'” Honeycutt said. “I think there was a lot of fear back then, so what I do is that is the benchmark to say, well, how would faculty respond now?”
Honeycutt says they found self-censorship today is nearly four times higher when compared to the same question asked in 1954.
Nearly 6,300 were surveyed including 274 members at the University of Michigan. They said three difficult topics to discuss on campus: Israel-Palestine, Affirmative Action, and racial inequality.
