As the new school year begins, defending the free exchange of ideas on campus remains top of mind for many. The changing federal regulatory landscape continues to rattle students and faculty alike, all of whom are facing uncertainty about the dos and don'ts of classroom exchange. Worryingly, new evidence suggests that students are eager to project ideological alignment with their professors, even if that means intentionally tamping down their own views – or even silencing themselves entirely.

A recent survey of undergraduate students at Northwestern University and the University of Michigan conducted by two Northwestern grad students found that over 88% of the 1,452 students surveyed pretended to have a more progressive view in order to succeed socially or academically. Eighty percent of respondents also said that they had “submitted classwork that misrepresented their views in order to align with professors[‘s views],” or at least what students perceived to be their professors’ views.

The survey’s results must be interpreted with caution since the participating students may not be representative of the broader student population. But a nationwide survey conducted by the Buckley Institute in 2024 found that about half of the 823 students they surveyed were too intimidated to share beliefs that differed from their professors at least some of the time. (The good news is that figure is down from 61% in 2023.)

Of course, students may not actually know where their professors stand on any given political matter. But what students can probably suss out is that faculty do tend to lean left relative to the general American population. And whether students are simply engaging in people-pleasing in order to lock in a higher grade or silencing themselves out of genuine fear of consequences, the end result is the same: stifled classroom exchanges that throttle open inquiry.

Unfortunately, faculty themselves are often not in a position to come out swinging in defense of free exchange in the classroom. Nearly 70% of faculty are non-tenure track and consequently lack fuller academic freedom protections. Professors regardless of status can be taking great professional risks when allowing unencumbered exchange in the classroom.

Earlier this year, the AAUP and AAC&U’s Academic Freedom and Civil Discourse in Higher Education survey found two worrying trends that were more pronounced among non-tenure track faculty. First, the survey asked faculty the following: “if a student says something in class that some students feel causes harm to certain groups of people, do you think that the instructor should stop that student from talking?” Nearly 23% of all faculty, regardless of tenure status, said “yes” – a concerning finding in and of itself. The report also found that “low influence/security” faculty – who tend to be off the tenure track – were significantly more likely to say “yes” than faculty with greater security and influence.

A second finding from the survey may also cause open inquiry advocates concern: 1 out of every 5 faculty also said “yes” when asked “if a student says something in class that some students feel causes harm to certain groups of people, do you think that the students should report that student to university administrators?” Again, this finding was more pronounced in the group designated as “low-security” faculty, who are less likely to benefit from full academic freedom protections, with 1 in 4 endorsing this student-on-student censorship.

It’s important to note that most of these surveys predate the current Trump administration. In particular, censorious leanings exhibited by faculty – whether out of self-preservation or a need to protect students – cannot be blamed on the chaos of the last eight months. But there is good reason to think that given the current climate, all of these tendencies – the self-censoring, the silencing, the censoriousness – may be even more pronounced as university administrators and faculty struggle to find their footing in the rapidly changing regulatory landscape.

In short, students are faking progressivism at the same time that fewer faculty have academic freedom protections and just as accusations of hostile environments, bias and discrimination are being lodged at universities left and right. Not exactly a recipe for open inquiry.