Self-Censorship on College Campuses Is Widespread and Getting Worse/The Daily Beast

....For context, consider that at the end of the Second Red Scare—the period after World War II during the age of Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s witch hunts and deep anti-communist fear—nine percent of faculty members reported censoring themselves to avoid controversy. FIRE’s study reveals that today, one in four faculty members are doing the same.

Moreover, a majority of faculty worry about losing their jobs or harming their reputations because someone misrepresents their words, while a third self-censor out of concern over the responses of staff, students, or administrators. This has created a truly chilling effect on learning and innovation on campuses nationwide.

The data show that a third of faculty (34 percent) reported that they self-censor on campus “fairly” or “very” often—a number notably higher than the one-fifth (21 percent) of students who said they felt this way in FIRE’s 2022 national student survey. And, while there were no notable gender or racial/ethnic differences in self-censorship on campus, political ideology played a role....