The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) has released a new survey of nearly 1,500 faculty members at four-year colleges in the US. Ideologically, the survey was more diverse than some other recent surveys of college faculty:

Overall, half of the faculty surveyed identified as liberal, 17% identified as moderate, and just over one-quarter (26%) identified as conservative. The percentage of professors who identified as conservative was somewhat higher than the percentages found in other recent surveys of faculty. This could reflect the associations made by respondents. The survey recruitment email specifically mentioned FIRE, an organization that some academics consider overly sympathetic to conservative viewpoints. The email also specified that the survey focused on issues of free expression and academic freedom. It’s possible that these factors increased the likelihood that moderate and conservative faculty would participate. Nevertheless, most of the faculty (71%) also reported that the average member in their department is liberal, while just 9% said the average member is conservative. Faculty 35 and under were the most liberal, with almost two-thirds (62%) identifying this way.

So this survey may slightly overrepresent conservative opinion compared to the actual make-up of the average campus. There are 10 major findings listed from the survey but the one I want to highlight is this one about professor’s fear of being fired or having their reputation destroyed because of something they say.

…more than half of the faculty respondents (52%) indicated they are worried about losing their jobs or reputations because someone misunderstands something they said or did, took it out of context, or posted something from their past online. Among those who were very or somewhat worried, roughly one-fifth (18%) agreed that their fear of losing their jobs or reputations because of something they said or posted online was a justified price to pay to protect historically disadvantaged groups. This indicates a modicum of support for hard authoritarianism despite personal speech fears.

As you might expect, the fear of being canceled wasn’t shared equally among faculty. Conveniently for the campus monoculture, it’s the ideological minority that is most afraid to speak up. You have to wonder if the progressives don’t like the campus culture this fear creates, at least until it got out of hand and threatened them.

Significantly more non-tenured faculty (24%) than tenured/tenure-track faculty (19%) expressed being “very worried” about losing their job or reputation because someone misunderstands something they said or did, took it out of context, or posted something from their past online. Ideological differences for this question were even more pronounced, as almost three-fourths (72%) of conservative faculty reported being “somewhat” or “very” worried. This fear was not limited to conservative faculty, as 56% of moderate faculty, and even 40% of liberal faculty, also felt this way. In other words, 40% of those in the dominant ideological group on campus reported being worried about losing their jobs or reputations, which speaks volumes about the climate of fear, intimidation, and censorship on campus.

Still, if 40% of campus lefties don’t feel safe on campus anymore we clearly have a problem. The result of this fear is that conservative faculty are far more likely to self-censor.

Over half of conservative faculty (57%) indicated they self-censor often on campus, compared to a third of moderate faculty, and a fifth of liberal faculty.

Last week I wrote about a progressive professor who was turned on by a group of high school students after they were mentored by a very woke teaching assistant. Within a matter of weeks, the students had voted 2 members out of the seminar and then accused the professor (who was black) of assorted microaggressions against them. If you missed that story it’s worth a look to get an idea of what even progressive professors are up against from the far left these days. That story also made it clear that it was younger extremists who were leading this new cult against older professors.

This chart from the FIRE survey supports the idea that a lot of this problem is coming from the students themselves. Here’s a comparison of students vs. faculty on questions involving deplatforming campus speakers. As you can see, the students are far more likely to support shouting down speakers, blocking students from hearing a speech they disapprove of or even using violence to stop a speech.

Unfortunately, if you break down the faculty by age you find the views of the younger faulty aren’t much different from the students in the graph above.

Among faculty under 35 only 80% agreed it was wrong to use violence to stop a speech. I don’t know, maybe whoever is doing the hiring at these schools ought to try to weed out the pro-political violence professors?