Chilling effects? The Impact of Political Statement-Making on Faculty at R1 Universities

Аннотация

Domestic and international socio-political crises have reinvigorated debate about whether colleges should issue statements on topics outside of their academic missions of teaching and research. Philosophical arguments for and against the practice of institutional neutrality are abundant, but no empirical research has looked at attitudes towards institutional position-taking among faculty and how institutional statements may affect faculty’s professional and extramural behaviors. This study addresses this gap through a survey of tenure-track faculty (N=250) at U.S. R1 universities. Findings indicate that a majority of faculty are familiar with at least some institutional statements issued by their universities, but a non-negligible percentage is unfamiliar with them (22%). Most faculty favor neutrality and have disagreed with at least some of the institutional positions taken. Self-censorship has been a reported outcome of institutional statements among a third of the faculty, and about half of faculty report modifying their professional engagement with a topic based on their university’s position. Formal sanctions of faculty due to behaviors indicating their disagreement with statements were rare, but they nevertheless expressed concerns about social marginalization, which may be attributable to their reported perception of strong ideological homogeneity among their academic community. Among demographic variables, race and tenure status were found to have a significant impact on responses to the survey questions. Non-white and untenured faculty were more likely to indicate constraint in expressing their viewpoints, and more likely to be discouraged from participating in professional activities on a topic if their views were misaligned with those of their university.  The results point to some chilling effect of statements, for which institutional neutrality should be considered.