The Chilling Impact of Censorship in Higher Education

Perhaps because college students are generally considered adults, and college and university campuses and classrooms have long been viewed as places to engage with and debate ideas, these campuses historically have been somewhat insulated from censorship challenges compared to other settings.

Recently, however, concerns over censorship have extended into higher education. While censorship in school and public libraries often takes the form of challenges to specific materials and programs, the approach on college and university campuses is more broadly focused on attempts to restrict intellectual and academic freedom.

One of the biggest concerns is that higher education is not being targeted by individual, or even coordinated, challenges to specific programs and materials. Instead, these challenges are taking the form of legislation that attempts to limit curricular content, especially related to issues of equity, diversity, and inclusion, including materials and programming related in any way to LGBTQIA+ communities, or related to what is often mistakenly labeled critical race theory. PEN America found that 29 of the 110 censorship bills proposed in 2023 targeted higher education specifically, and 17 attempted to restrict campuses’ ability to carry out equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) initiatives, among other things. Some of these bills include criminal penalties. If passed, these laws could severely impact a faculty member’s ability to teach and conduct research, by limiting the kinds of materials they could assign in classes, the kinds of research questions they could ask or topics they could investigate, and even the kinds of discussions they could have with students.

But even when these proposed bills do not pass, and so far few of them have, they likely have a chilling effect, discouraging faculty from engaging with these contested topics. In fact, PEN America notes that these proposed bills “have created an atmosphere of profound fear and anxiety for both public school educators and higher ed faculty.” Ithaka S+R found that the current political landscape impacts collection-building in academic libraries, that campuses are dismantling or re-envisioning EDI programs, and “employees are scared, which is impacting the workplace.” That many of these bills are vaguely worded
only exacerbates the problem. While the situation is concerning, there are some steps faculty and staff can take to help:

• Everyone should try to keep abreast of the issues. Organizations like Freedom to Read Foundation, Every Library and PEN America can be helpful.
• Each campus should have clear, written policies related to academic freedom, intellectual freedom, and other relevant areas such as library collection development, campus protests, and so on.
• Institutions should avoid being bullied into self-censoring by over-interpreting laws or by restricting practices that are not explicitly addressed by law out of fear of being challenged. As Jeremy C. Young and Jonathan Friedman wrote in Liberal Education, “Don’t do the censors’ work for them.”
• If appropriate, institutions could issue public statements in defense of academic and intellectual freedom and individual faculty and staff could write or speak about the topic.
• As appropriate, individual faculty and staff could reach out to legislators to advocate for academic and intellectual freedom and against bills that restrict education. However, depending on their individual institution and employment status, such actions might be seen as lobbying and constitute a conflict of interest for some faculty and staff. These individuals could still advocate within their institutions to be sure stakeholders are aware of the issues.

Finally, we should find and connect with allies. Allies in our institutions’ administration or our states’ legislatures as well as other stakeholders can help increase the impact of our messages and advocacy. But also, having allies among our colleagues can be a source of much-needed professional and emotional support when we are faced with these kinds of challenges.