Abstract
Sustaining a climate that encourages free speech and free inquiry is a persistent challenge in the university setting, just as it is in society more broadly. Appropriate institutional protections and policies can help protect against the censorious suppression of unorthodox views, but the problem of self-censorship by faculty and students alike might be a harder problem to solve. Creating safeguards so that dissenters from local orthodoxies do not fear reprisals is only a first step toward reducing the temptation to self-censorship. Constructing a pluralistic intellectual environment and nurturing a culture of critical dialogue and skeptical inquiry will help draw out a more robust exchange of ideas.
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Notes
Much of this research has been done in the United States, but these sorts of surveys are no more encouraging when done in populations outside the United States. Peffley and Rohrschneider (2003).
Further Reading
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Whittington, K.E. The Value of Pluralism in the Academy. Soc 56, 607–610 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12115-019-00423-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12115-019-00423-z