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One in 10 faculty members working in states that restrict academic speech are seeking jobs out of state, according to survey data released this week. Six percent reported they are trying to leave the academy altogether.
The new data on relocating researchers underpins anecdotal stories about faculty members fleeing red states in search of greater academic freedom. Researchers with Ithaka S+R, a nonprofit higher education consultancy, surveyed 4,003 researchers at U.S. four-year colleges and universities via email about a slate of topics, but their first look at the data is focused on academic freedom in research.
The Harvard Crimson reports that “Harvard is quietly asking donors for $10 million gifts to establish new endowed professorships in a sweeping bid to reshape its faculty under the banner of ‘viewpoint diversity.’” If so, it’s an initiative that would improve Harvard. But it sure is a big-budget one.
But the point of these rumored endowed professorships at Harvard is to promote “viewpoint diversity,” and the ecosystem for the professors to get hired does not fit the Harvard endowment model. Who will Harvard hire from?
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s civics school has been controversial since early 2023, when the campus Board of Trustees called to “accelerate” its development before faculty even knew it was underway. The board’s then-chairman said on Fox News he was trying to “remedy” a lack of “right-of-center views” on campus.
The university said it selected the international law firm K&L Gates last summer to review “allegations and concerns” regarding the school. Over more than seven months, the review team analyzed hundreds of thousands of documents and interviewed dozens of people. The report is complete, reportedly at a cost of $1.2 million and running more than 400 pages. But the university is refusing to release any of it—despite calls from students, faculty and media to at least reveal some contents.
A curious feature of the recently released “Report of the Yale Committee on Trust in Higher Education,” which is rightly being hailed as a major statement of the academic-reform movement, is a certain gingerness when it comes to describing the shape and substance of professorial political radicalism — a significant driver of declining public faith in the sector.
True, the report names the concern that “liberal professors indoctrinate their students,” and it endorses processes to encourage “open interchange” rather than ideological conformity. But, perhaps out of a reluctance to lend aid and comfort to right-wing opponents of academic freedom, the report refrains from getting too specific about the contours of left-wing academic politicization.
A couple of months ago, we spoke with the Chronicle of Higher Education about what they are calling “the conservative hiring boom.” At the time, it seemed clear to us that there was a “vibe shift” of sorts in terms of academic norms. Standalone DEI statements were on the decline, and there were anecdotal reports of heterodox scholars being recruited for faculty positions with a goal of increasing viewpoint diversity.
In light of this, we ran a poll asking folks about their perceptions of academic job market vibes, using an informal member email survey. We collected responses from 244 people working in higher education (77% of whom are HxA members). Here’s what we found.
Over the past few years, higher education institutions have adopted emerging artificial intelligence tools in an effort to enhance nearly every aspect of campus life—not just teaching and learning but also admissions, alumni networks, fundraising and advising. Now some are even experimenting with AI’s ability to advance one of the hottest trends on college campuses: fostering constructive dialogue among students, who are more divided over politics now than at any point in the past 40 years.
