New State Laws Are ‘Stealth Censorship,’ Limit Discussions in College Classrooms: Report
Credit: Education Images / Universal Images Group / Getty Images- Explicit attacks on academic speech and college classroom discussions were down in 2024.
- Disguised censorship attempts, however, are on the rise, according to a new report from PEN America.
- Some worry these new laws will lead to poorer course quality.
- An ongoing legal challenge in Indiana aims to strike down one such law.
Clear attacks on college classroom discussions faded from the news in 2024, but what replaced those attacks may be more dire.
A report from free speech watchdog PEN America found that state governments enacted just five bills that directly curtailed educational speech at colleges and universities in 2024.
While this may initially seem like an improvement from previous years, report co-author Jeremy Young told BestColleges that lawmakers have instead opted to push a new kind of restriction: viewpoint diversity mandates. Essentially, rather than list topics professors can’t discuss in classrooms, these laws require professors to expound on a multitude of viewpoints.
This, Young said, incentivizes “bad teaching.”
“Faculty are afraid of their own shadows on anything that is remotely controversial,” he said. “It would result in really a dumbing down of the classroom experience.”
Take, for example, an economics lesson on gender pay disparity. Young said that rather than stick to consensus views in their field, a professor may now feel pressured to assign readings that argue against the existence of a gender pay gap or argue fringe perspectives on the cause of these gaps.
Why?
Indiana’s viewpoint diversity law carries strict consequences.
A university’s board of trustees can fire a professor or void tenure if the professor doesn’t comply with the law. The board can also deny tenure to a professor it deems likely not to promote viewpoint diversity in the future.
“The problem with this is that what constitutes viewpoint diversity is very subjective,” Young said.
Additionally, trustees rarely have a background in academia, he said. They may instead have a political axe to grind, which creates a chilling effect on faculty speech.
Moreover, universities are required to create a system for students to file complaints against their professors.
The results are less enriching classroom discussions or professors avoiding controversial topics altogether.
“If you guess wrong, you lose your job,” Young said.
Indiana University Professor David McDonald recently told The Herald-Times that he was investigated over a one-minute clip he showed of pro-Palestinian protesters for the seminar “Politics, Thought, and Voice.”
While the complaints were eventually thrown out, he said the continued threat of an investigation could be “just as bad” as punitive action.
“Faculty are just going to choose, ‘You know what? I’m not going to teach that because I don’t want to have to go through all the investigations that will come afterward,'” he said.
State lawmakers across the U.S. introduced seven bills restricting curricular control during the first nine months of 2024, PEN America’s report found. That was up from three in 2023 and one in 2022.
One thing that has been missing is bills targeting topics like critical race theory (CRT) or divisive topics. Young said conservatives have had to pivot after such laws proved to be unpopular or couldn’t withstand legal scrutiny, as was the case with Florida’s Stop WOKE Act.
The new tact of viewpoint diversity may be harder to challenge in courts, as these laws don’t outright ban certain kinds of free speech, he added.
However, legal challenges may be successful in arguing vagueness. Essentially, courts can determine that the language in these laws is so vague that they have the consequence of chilling protected speech, Young said.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is currently making this argument in court, but the case has yet to be adjudicated. McDonald is a plaintiff in one of the two cases.
Young expects more states will follow Indiana’s lead in 2025 and introduce similar laws. States are also likely to continue introducing laws aimed at diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) offices in colleges and universities, despite a BestColleges poll that found that 75% of current students who responded are generally in favor of efforts to support DEI on college campuses.
“[These laws] may be less flashy,” Young said, “but they are far more serious and dire for university communities and free expression on campus.”