How targeting scholars for speech leaves lasting scars

When a scholar is targeted for their expression, the story rarely ends when the headlines fade. The formal investigations wrap up and the social media outrage may die down, but for many, the experience marks a permanent shift in how they think, speak, and interact with others in public. Such cases have profound implications for academic freedom and the state of campus free speech in higher education.

According to FIRE’s Sanctioned Scholars report, nearly three-quarters of the scholars we asked said they would not change anything they said or did that led to being targeted. But many also said that, in other ways, they are now altering their speech.

Almost a third of all the scholars we surveyed said they are now less likely to express views like the ones for which they were targeted, and many say they now speak more cautiously with faculty, administrators, and even students. Fewer conservative scholars say they now self-censor with students, but there weren’t enough conservatives and liberals in the sample to be able to say whether the gap is real — or just noise.

In other words, even once the punishment or heat of controversy has passed, the pressure to stay silent or watch one’s words lingers on. This pressure to self-censor doesn’t seem to impact most scholars’ actual research or publications, as few say they hold back in these areas. But even if only one in 10 does, that’s not nothing.

Extrapolated to the entire Scholars Under Fire database, that’s over 170 scholars — and that’s just the ones we know were targeted. But for a little more than one in three scholars, things have changed. They’re now avoiding certain topics in class or online — and for some, that caution even spills over into their personal lives.

This partially mirrors the wider shift in academia. FIRE’s 2024 faculty survey found that more than one in four professors now say they hold back in conversations with administrators, colleagues, or students. And the pressures on campus speech keep intensifying, particularly from government actors.

When scholars are afraid to speak — or punished for doing so — something is lost. The Sanctioned Scholars report shows the toll this takes: sleepless nights, stress, being shunned at work, even losing one’s job. But it also shows how people change after. As one professor admitted, “I continue sometimes to be shocked at what some people will say apparently without fear of retaliation, and I suppose I envy them.”

Others said they now avoid certain topics, rewrite syllabi, scale back public engagement — some even avoid going out in public at all.

The result is not a healthy climate for campus free speech or open inquiry. It’s the opposite. Free expression has always required courage — courage to speak, to listen, to defend. If academics lose that courage, they will fail the very mission of the academy. And if that happens, it won’t be the academy’s critics who silence it. It’ll be the academy itself, sheepishly retreating from its own principles.