Only seven percent of liberal students were concerned about how their professor’s ideology would affect their grades while that rate is 6 times higher for conservatives at 42 percent. Sixty-eight percent of conservatives were worried about sharing their views with other students (as opposed to 31 percent among liberal students).
The authors also concluded that a “significant number of students have concerns about stating their sincere political views in class and have self-censored because they were concerned about the potential reactions.”
Universities have failed to push for greater ideological diversity on faculties as hiring committees continue to replicate their own viewpoints and bias. It is not just students but faculty who face this pressure to self-censure. Faculty members risk cancel campaigns that threaten publications, conference invitations, and even their employment if they voice dissenting views.
It is heartbreaking to meet with students who feel, even in law school, that they must remain silent in class to avoid the ire or retaliation from faculty. Most faculties have a small and diminishing number of conservative or libertarian members. I discuss that long trend in my recent publication in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy. The article is entitled “Harm and Hegemony: The Decline of Free Speech in the United States.”