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US academics are increasingly holding their tongues for fear of losing their jobs, with conservative academics feeling the heat more than their liberal counterparts, a shocking campus poll has revealed.
Investigation by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), a free speech group, found that 52 percent of teachers said they were worried they would lose their jobs or reputation if they were misinterpreted or taken out of context.
Those on the right feel it the most: 72 percent of conservative respondents feared being canned for their views, compared with 56 percent of moderates and 40 percent of liberals.
It is many times worse than during the Red Scare anti-communist purge of US institutions in the 1950s, when Senator Joseph McCarthy investigated his targets for subversion and espionage, the researchers said.
FIRE investigator Nathan Honeycutt has warned of a chilling wave at the academy.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), a free speech group, found that 52 percent of teachers said they were worried about losing their jobs or reputation because they were misinterpreted or taken out of context.
As part of his shakeup of education in Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis is seeking to ban universities from teaching critical race theory (CRT) and radical gender ideology, much to the chagrin of some professors and free speech advocates.
“When professors across the political spectrum are terrified of losing their jobs for exercising their rights, true academic inquiry and diversity of thought become nearly impossible,” Honeycutt said.
The survey of nearly 1,500 US faculty members comes as universities become increasingly polarized and activists and politicians on the left and right turn campuses into the front lines of America’s culture wars.
New hires complain about having to submit diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) statements for jobs, while liberal tutors in Florida say they were forced to stop teaching about racism and gender due to rules imposed by the Republican Governor Ron DeSantis.
Notable victims include former Hamline University tutor Erika Lopez Prater, who was fired from the Minnesota school after a Muslim student complained that she displayed a 14th-century painting of the Prophet Muhammad as part of a lesson. about Islamic art, even though he had warned the students. in advance.
Meanwhile, Dr. Richard Lowery, a tenured professor at the University of Texas at Austin, sued the school, saying administrators threatened his work for saying critical race theory (CRT) “had no scientific basis.”
FIRE’s 54-page report, The Academic Mind in 2022, was released Tuesday and found that about three in five respondents believed that “a university professor should have the freedom to express any of their ideas or convictions on any subject.”
But the reality in American schools is very different, with 11 percent of teachers describing having been disciplined or threatened with such for their teaching, and 4 percent facing the same for their research or academic speaking.
At the other extreme, around a third of professors supported university officials who opened formal investigations into their colleagues who made controversial statements, showing how some academics seek to cancel each other out.
DEI statements have become increasingly common at universities in recent years, and by some estimates are required for one-fifth of academic positions. States such as Florida and Texas have introduced laws to prohibit mandatory DEI filings.
Respondents were evenly split on such statements: 50 percent said they were justifiable requirements, while the other half of respondents called them an ideological litmus test that violates academic freedom.
Liberal female academics supported them more than conservative males. Some 57 percent of liberal academics said that improving political diversity was less important than promoting racial and gender diversity on campus.
Leaders of the Hamline University faculty, which fired art history professor Erika López Prater (pictured right), have called overwhelmingly for university president Fayneese Miller (pictured right) to left), resign
Aram Wedatalla complained to the school, claiming that the image of the Prophet Muhammad had “shocked” her even though Professor Prater had given the class multiple warnings that he intended to display it.
The researchers noted that the survey suffered from a low response rate among FIRE’s conservative-leaning members.
The nonprofit civil liberties group earlier this month named Hamline University one of America’s Worst Colleges for Free Speech in the wake of the Prophet Muhammad firing scandal.
The other schools that made it to the top ten include the University of Pennsylvania of transgender swim star Lia Thomas, who was cited for trying to silence a professor’s anti-immigration and anti-affirmative action comments.
The University of Oregon is listed for requiring staff members to ‘pleasure allegiance’ to ‘diversity, equity and inclusion’. The prestigious Texas A&M also cracked the top ten after school officials began taking control of traditionally student-run events on campus.