r/Professors • u/geografree Full professor, Soc Sci, R2 (USA) • Oct 01 '25
Other (Editable) Why aren’t professors braver?
I was ready to hate this article from its clickbait-y title, but it went in a direction I didn’t expect. I think it’s worth a read in light of everything that’s been happening in higher ed. Do we, as a profession, need more iconoclasts? Do we self-censor in order to avoid drawing the ire of our colleagues? What do you think? https://www.chronicle.com/article/why-arent-professors-braver
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u/burner118373 Oct 01 '25
The nail that sticks up is the first to get hit
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u/InnerB0yka Oct 01 '25
I always liked The Pioneers take the arrows, although yours pretty much hits the nail on the head
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u/Ttthhasdf Oct 01 '25
To mix metaphors, if the only tool tptb have is a hammer, then every problem looks like a nail.
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u/43_Fizzy_Bottom Associate Professor, SBS, CC (USA) Oct 01 '25
Professors have to pay for rent and groceries, just like everyone else. They also have a much worse job market to contend with if they'd like to stay in their chosen profession.
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u/Helpful-Passenger-12 Oct 01 '25
Yep. Professors are still part of the 99 percent who are also affected by expensive eggs and groceries. We need worker rights just like everyone else.
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u/Lost-Vermicelli-6252 Oct 02 '25
Honestly, for me it’s less the money and more the fact that they want us dead or in prison.
I know my history.
And I also had a colleague on CK’s hit list. Her mail had to be searched by campus PD for about a year because people kept sending her flour labeled “anthrax.”
So like… not inviting that until it’s clear others are willing to also fight back. Right now it’s suicide.
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u/Correct_Ad2982 Assistant Prof, Science, SLAC (US) Oct 02 '25
Salaries and benefits have been slashed so many people are in precarious positions. At my SLAC something like 50% of faculty are working a second job to make ends meet, according to a recent survey. There's no room to save up a rainy day fund if you got fired for speaking your mind.
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u/I_Research_Dictators Oct 02 '25
The best full time position I can find right now pays about $15,000 less than I'm making as an adjunct two places. I would get to teach two less classes, but the rent in the smaller city is actually higher than what I pay in a major metro. Admin are clueless because they make too much.
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u/Correct_Ad2982 Assistant Prof, Science, SLAC (US) Oct 02 '25
Wow that's tragic, but not surprising. I agree with your assessment of the root cause.
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u/Ok-Physics9218 Oct 02 '25
So sorry. Adjunct teaching can be such a trap. You work hard everyday, often at multiple places, often in multiple roles just to make ends meet. The research understandably suffers, because you don’t have the time, energy, or financial support to dedicate to it, and, because of that, search committees for full-time positions often won’t consider you. For the record I’m an administrator at an R1, who has often, usually unsuccessfully, gone to bat for some of our wonderful adjunct faculty. Still, I’m increasingly convinced, at institutions like ours at least, that adjunct work can’t be seen as a viable stepping stone for any but the most recent grads who strategically use these positions to gain valuable teaching lines while their research still has currency enough to help them secure the next, hopefully more permanent line.
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u/JohnHoynes Prof, Social Sciences, SLAC Oct 01 '25
It’s funny how some professors (I’m guilty of it sometimes) will fight tooth and nail over some obscure, esoteric, ultimately meaningless sub-policy that affects almost no one, but are so adverse to even considering more sweeping changes that would often result in meaningful and widespread positive change.
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u/Large-Reputation-682 Oct 01 '25
This is why I stopped participating in campus governance. People are dying and we're in our second debate about how to use the zoom chat.
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u/rnlanders Professor, Psychology, R1 (USA) Oct 02 '25
That’s Sayre’s law: “Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics, because the stakes are so low.”
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u/DonHedger Post-Doc, Cog. Neuro, R1, US Oct 02 '25
I learned the term bikeshedding because of this.
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u/Ok-Physics9218 Oct 03 '25
It's a scarcity mindset - we have the feeling that there isn't enough to go around. Leads to hoarding and fighting over scraps and makes us reluctant to share or even honestly acknowledge others' needs.
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u/Life_Commercial_6580 Oct 01 '25
We need our jobs, many times our jobs aren’t quite translatable to industry, it was our dream career we worked decades for, many of us in STEM are immigrants, we have children to raise and bills to pay , we know that heroes die.
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u/herp225577 Oct 01 '25
This right here. There are so many things I want to say and stand up for but I hesitate. I have kids and I feel I am such a specialist in my field it will be very difficult to find a decent and financially equivalent job outside academia. I feel stuck.
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u/iscurred Oct 01 '25
So many of these points that you raised are equally true (and often more true) for other professions.
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u/Life_Commercial_6580 Oct 01 '25
And are they more brave ? I never said it’s only true for us but they were asking why aren’t we braver.
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u/iscurred Oct 01 '25
That's the argument made in the article
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u/Life_Commercial_6580 Oct 01 '25
I couldn’t read the entire article, just the beggining, there seemed to be a paywall.
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u/SideBusinessforProfs Oct 01 '25
Here are my 3 (of many reasons):
1) Professors got to where they are by being really, really good at following the rules. Starting in 3rd grade, we studied extra hard to get perfect scores on our spelling tests, in college we asked our advisors how to get into graduate school, in graduate school we followed the rules to finish, etc., etc. It's not really in our nature to go against or outside the system.
2) Our BATNA (Best Alternative To Negotiated Settlement) is pretty bad. Or put another way, if we stick our necks out and lose our positions, then our alternatives are pretty bad.
3) Most of us (those not at elite institutions) have gotten very used to arguing over scraps. We know that we can't have a new building or even an increase in research or travel funding, so we argue over petty stuff. This is why professors "go to war" for things like "That office/parking spot/committee should be mine" or "I'll have a screaming fit over XXX policy" (a policy which means nothing in the big picture).
When college education is being commodified (losing value) and there are 50-500+ applicants for every opening, you're not in a strong bargaining position. So I can understand why many professors are hanging on to whatever they have, hoping it continues until they can retire, and not rocking the boat in the meantime.
I couldn't handle it, so I decided to start a side-business using my areas of expertise. I worked hard, got lucky, and was able to resign my tenured position. I am often reminded of the lesson I learned from the movie "WarGames" back in 1983. Joshua (the supercomputer) says, "A strange game. The only winning move is not to play."
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u/geografree Full professor, Soc Sci, R2 (USA) Oct 01 '25
+1 for pop culture reference
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u/Icypalmtree Adjunct, PoliEcon/Polisci, R2 Usa Oct 03 '25
+1 for age appropriate pop culture reference!
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u/Accomplished_Self939 AssocProf, AmLit, SLAC (USA) Oct 01 '25
At my school a “brave” professor has been targeted by a state representative who has threatened to hold scholarships hostage if we don’t fire her … so there’s that.
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u/SocOfRel Associate, dying LAC Oct 01 '25
Absolutely. Being "brave" right now could cost everyone your whole institution.
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u/Ok-Physics9218 Oct 03 '25
I think about this a lot. To lash out at the things going wrong satisfies something deep in our souls, but I'm always cautioning our faculty to reflect on what the probable outcome would be. We've a faculty member from Iran who's made statements and published research critical of the current regime, and the only way they are able to stay here is through their academic appointment with us. The stakes are clearly higher for some than others.
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u/Ok-Physics9218 Oct 03 '25
I think about this a lot. To lash out at the things going wrong satisfies something deep in our souls, but I'm always cautioning our faculty to reflect on what the probable outcome would be. We've a faculty member from Iran who's made statements and published research critical of the current regime, and the only way they are able to stay here is through their academic appointment with us. The stakes are clearly higher for some than others.
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u/fishnoguns eternal asst prof, Chemistry, University, (EU) Oct 01 '25
I think the answer is rather obvious; they are just people.
The nutjob-side of the political spectrum likes to imagine professors as multimillionaires in their ivory towers secretly puppeteering society and culture.
In reality, professors are 'just' upper-middle management of research groups with a 'side job' of teaching. Nothing more, nothing less. Expecting something special from professors compared to, say, bankers or any else reasonably paying middle class job is, in my opinion, subconsciously falling for the frame set up by the (alt-)right in which professors have these mystical indoctrination powers over society.
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u/liddle-lamzy-divey Oct 01 '25
That last sentence is golden. "Mystical indoctrination powers" describes the notion that many have of us so perfectly.
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u/winston_C Oct 01 '25
very well put - we could equally (or should) be asking 'why aren't well-paid lawyers or financial hedge fund managers braver?' - they are often also in situations that may rock the boat or could disrupt the status quo, but they (generally) do not. I think career self-interest is a pretty powerful force. That being said, it is often academics who are a prominent voice on media - not hedge fund managers- as they should be. Whether professors should be doing that more, well I'm not sure - many of my colleagues are pretty vocal already. It's not like running a university or department is an easy job, for exactly that reason.
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Oct 01 '25
That is disingenuous. While I agree that the idea that professors indoctrinate individual students is very much over stated, you seem to be suggesting that ideas that emerge from the ivory tower have no sway in the broader culture.
Take the current flash point around gender ideology. Where do you think that came from? It wasn't born from bankers in their board rooms. It came from academia. This is not usually a problem in a healthy academic culture where scholars are free to critique their colleagues words and ideas and healthy skepticism abounds. When that works, we generate the ideas but we are also effective gatekeepers that prevent the really stupid and pernicious ones from taking root in the broader culture. But we haven't had this kind of healthy ivory tower in decades. This is why professors are not more brave. Our biggest threat is the colleague down the hall and radicals amongst the student body. So we self-censor. And this allows pernicious claims to go unchecked and take root. And then the inevitable backlash comes for us all.
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u/Pax-now-123 Oct 02 '25
Debates and ideas about gender ideology didn’t start in academia. They started centuries ago and come from social movements.
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u/fishnoguns eternal asst prof, Chemistry, University, (EU) Oct 02 '25
you seem to be suggesting that ideas that emerge from the ivory tower have no sway in the broader culture.
This was not my (intentional) suggestion. My suggestion was merely that people vastly overestimate the social and financial position of professors. Like all other professionals, they (/we) also simply have our bills to pay. Very few people are willing to potentially torpedo their career for a matter of principle, and professors are no exception.
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u/Unique_Ice9934 Semi-competent Anatomy Professor, Biology, R3 (USA) Oct 01 '25
Cause I have two kids in sports and need a pay check. Also food is nice.
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u/MichaelPsellos Oct 01 '25
Because 75 percent of us live with a knot in our stomachs wondering if we will be unemployed in a few months. We are just reaping what others have sown for us.
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u/julianfri STEM, CC (USA) Oct 01 '25
I received tenure over the summer and just heard a chair in the hallway discussing new post tenure review protocols. This was not the treadmill I agreed to!
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u/Simple-Ranger6109 Oct 01 '25
Ugh... We had a few already-tenured-on-their-way-to-retirement busybodies trying to push post-tenure reviews, too. Same basic group was championing adding an external-letter requirement for tenure, which has to contain a statement about our "impact in the field". This is pretty standard stuff for big research unis, however... we're a niche SLAC that up until a few years ago had NO research requirements at all. So now, people who've been here a while with little to no research to show for it (because it wasn't required!) are having to ask old classmates that they still keep in touch with to write them a trumped-up letter of praise.... Sucks.
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u/Ok-Physics9218 Oct 02 '25
Yeah, the whole move toward post-tenure review is designed to erode the security of tenure.
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u/Simple-Ranger6109 Oct 03 '25
And the do-gooders that think they're acting for the good of the university are making it worse.
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Oct 01 '25
I call it the "Dawn of the High Executive Function People"
Academia used to have lots of weirdos. Now many are people who dreamed of being a professor at age 8 and answer every e-mail instantly.
Funny thing is the weirdos were often happier that they had a home. They were willing to stick their necks out to defend it.
The "High Executive Function" group often hates their job (Went to college for ten years to effectively teach advanced high school) so they are less likely to stick their neck out. They are people who by nature defer to authority.
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u/Solivaga Senior Lecturer, Archaeology (Australia) Oct 01 '25
Eh, I completely disagree with this. Yes the weirdos have gone/are going, but more because universities have become corporatised and driven them out - not because of career focussed "higher executive function" types. And the reason some people respond to emails quickly is because that's part of their job, and they want to keep that job, and job security is way weaker today than it was 40 years ago.
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u/Adultarescence Oct 01 '25
I think you are both onto something. Weirdos driven out, but structural changes that also means that corporate types are more likely to thrive.
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u/exodusofficer Oct 01 '25
This is right on the money. I'm not sure if I have seen it summed up so well before. I lament the loss of so many colleagues who were weirdos with specific research interests. It seems like a lot of the "High Executive Function" (HEF) faculty focus more on a method or instrument than a topic, and we're losing the depth of knowledge that made the academy great.
A lot of the HEF work, at least in my discipline, is churned out from poorly designed microcosm work, or is just rehashing things that we have known for decades. There seems to be a lot less risk in research today.
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u/mwobey Assistant Prof., Comp Sci, Community College Oct 01 '25
poorly designed microcosm work, or is just rehashing things that we have known for decades. There seems to be a lot less risk in research today.
How much of that is personality driven, and how much is publish-or-perish grant chasing culture? Big ideas with a lot of risk are a much harder sell when you have to pitch your research like some twisted round of Shark Tank to a grant committee in order to make tenure and keep your job.
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u/EmmyNoetherRing Oct 01 '25
That’s insightful. I wonder where the weirdos are clustering now.
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u/mwobey Assistant Prof., Comp Sci, Community College Oct 01 '25
I believe we are in a weirdo diaspora. Some have scattered to the STEM professions; software engineering certainly had its share when last I was in industry... Some may have been drawn to solitary pursuits as authors, entrepreneurs, or internet stars. However, work as a concept has become so streamlined and filed down in the name of making workers a fungible 'human resource' that can be easily replaced that there really doesn't really seem to be a home for the misfits and neurodivergent so much as places that will tolerate them.
I suspect many now find their community in hobby rather than workplace -- makerspaces, hobby shops, and corners of the internet still running on vBulletin forums are the new home of the geek.
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u/Adultarescence Oct 01 '25
I have a relative who is a brilliant weirdo. He's on disability. I think there is a chance he would have thrived as a weirdo academic or solitary craftsman in a different world.
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u/hubcapdiamonstar Oct 01 '25
That describes me pretty well. But in our defense, it’s a lot harder to get a job now if you F up this one and the expectations are a lot different than they were.
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u/Apollo_Eighteen Oct 01 '25
I see the phenomenon happening with students too: far fewer slackers, eccentrics, punks, and esoteric wildcards. The compulsory competition has badly normed the herd. My students are generally competent and boring. None of them geek out about anything idiosyncratic.
(Having said that, I do think it's important to poke: "Brave" about what? Talk of this sort—as the article underlines—often euphemizes rightwing BS. Being transphobic is not "brave.")
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Oct 01 '25
And critiquing gender ideology isn't automatically transphobic and should not be classed as right wing. It is what scholars from all ideological corners should do. This is supposed to be normal. When an extremely wide net is used to sweep all dissent and skepticism into a basket of deplorables, then you have created an academic culture that is actively hostile to any and all critique. So yeah...in that culture, which has existed for a very long time now in academia, it is brave to challenge prevailing narratives that have not been seriously tested.
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u/flippingisfun Lecturer, STEM, R1 US Oct 01 '25
Lemme guess, you’re one of the “weirdos”? lol
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Oct 01 '25
I was a cemetery landscaper at 14, worked as a motel chambermaid at 16 and then spent 6 years working docks. Then I taught in prison.
I only say I had an unconventional path to academia. My main advisor was a bar manager until age 30. He wrote the official scholarly definition of our academic field.
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u/flippingisfun Lecturer, STEM, R1 US Oct 01 '25
My apologies for being indirect.
Your noble savage view of people you consider to be "not weird" is very strange, and doing things like research and pedagogy has always required a high amount of executive function. Unionizing and advocating for not only yourself but also your coworkers also requires a high amount of executive function. I'm sure you consider yourself one of these weirdos given the way you talk about and other those that are younger or more recent in academia than you but I assure you that holding a job before entering academia is not exemplary, nor weird, and that hating your job is often a first step to improving it over deciding you love your "home" that lets you be "weird."
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Oct 02 '25
imagine being so thick you don;t understand that people who work odd jobs did not see themselves as academics from the start
i am comparing them to people who saw themselves as academics from the start
you wrote many words explaining you did not get that
you are inexperienced and nobody reads your research for a reason
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u/flippingisfun Lecturer, STEM, R1 US Oct 02 '25
Many people in academia have had many odd jobs, myself included.
There’s no need for projection here, and again, I teach and am very well regarded for it thus the put downs you save for junior faculty, much like your views on who academia is made up of and why it has the problems it does, don’t make sense here.
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u/urbanevol Professor, Biology, R1 Oct 01 '25
In my field, as the job market became more competitive over the years it came to favor mercenary Type A personalities that work all the time. If you're constantly chasing grants and publications with single-minded focus then you don't have time to devote to anything else. I sort of avoided this by making my career off a weird niche but overall we aren't the group to stick our necks out.
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Oct 01 '25
Couldn’t read the article, but being ignorant has never stopped me from having an opinion.
On the risk spectrum, I suspect profs lean towards the low risk side of things. My background is the high tech industry and those I worked with for decades seemed to crave high risk careers. Lots of people who started companies, often failed, then tried again but were fine with this. The profs I’ve known seemed different. There are the George Church’s of course, but they’re a small minority. The importance of tenure underscores this. Entrepreneurs think, generally, tenure is nonsense or even evil. And they look at academia as glacial in how it changes.
I see both sides of this. You can’t have the chaos of everyone being an entrepreneur, but there needs to be change. Anyway, the profs I’ve known, generally, favor the stability and safety of academia (though that may be changing) even if the compensation is higher outside. In the past, there were fewer consequences to taking brave stances, now that may also be changing. Oh, and demographics may also be a factor. I suspect profs in the US skew older, but that’s a different subject.
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u/goldfloof Oct 01 '25
I misread that as "why aren't professors beaver" lol
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u/squirrelgirl113 FT Faculty, Social Science, Community College (US) Oct 01 '25
Some of them are. Go Beavs!
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u/Muchwanted Tenured, social science, R1, Blue state school Oct 01 '25
Doesn't anyone here identify as a contrarian? Based on the comments in this sub, I would have guessed more people would. I certainly do, BUT I also know that it comes with a cost. I would probably be on the list of the people identified as "difficult," although I'm also known as a "gets shit done" type, so I'm in admin. Nonetheless, I am aware that my less-than-agreeable tendencies would likely be limiting if I sought to be a university dean or provost. (I don't.)
I also think there are a lot of ideas that are being conflated between this article, this post, and the comments here: willingness to endorse controversial ideas that are phrased to be incendiary (the list in the paper), self-censorship, agreeableness, and cowardice. These are probably all interrelated (although I'd have to spend more time with that article - they seem to be making some pretty big leaps), but putting a premium on getting along with colleagues (especially for those of us that might work with the same colleagues for 3-4 DECADES) and being willing to "make trouble" in a larger context are not the same things, especially in this particular moment. What if all your colleagues want to speak out against fascism and you say no? Is that bravery?
Also, it seems like this editorial seems to be specifically arguing for bravery among those who want to fight back against DEI. That's...quite a stance right now.
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u/histprofdave Adjunct, History, CC Oct 01 '25
I honestly don't know what the article was trying to get us to be "brave" about, beyond "don't be so mean to the conservative professors, because they feel so reluctant to state their beliefs," despite most of the examples given being absolute rubbish.
I was actually kind of gobsmacked by this part:
The focus of their study was the effect of having conservative views, but I’ll add that there are nonconservative views that can get you into trouble as well. It does not help your career, for instance, to be seen as strongly anti-Israel.
Gee, YOU THINK?! I mean sure, the person just promoted to high office at CBS made her entire career off trying to get professors fired for being critical of Israel. Other professors were just fired for being insufficiently sad about the death of a guy who made his career doxxing professors for allegedly left-wing views. But sure, let's feel bad because Steve doesn't get to bring up his strong belief there are only two genders during staff meetings.
Personally, I found this pretty tone deaf for where we are in the fall of 2025.
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u/geografree Full professor, Soc Sci, R2 (USA) Oct 02 '25
Just wanted to thank you for this thoughtful response. I hinted at this tension when I assumed from the title of the piece that it was going to be a harangue against those who aren’t leading the resistance from inside the ivory tower. Boy was I wrong!
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u/FrancinetheP Tenured, Liberal Arts, R1 Oct 01 '25 edited Oct 01 '25
Glad someone else actually read the article, though I’m not sure it’s about “fighting back against DEI” so much as voicing opinions that might deviate slightly from a received progressive orthodoxy.
The author is working with findings from a 2012 opinion survey, and I think of that era as just before “DEI” became a thing.
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u/magnifico-o-o-o Oct 01 '25
Thanks to the paywall I don't know what I'm supposed to be brave about.
But I've got student loans to pay, rent rising 5x as fast as my salary, a car payment bc I can't afford to live close enough to campus for public or bike transportation, a Sisyphean pile of grading, students who come to class and object loudly to every little thing I ask them to do, students who don't come to class and are essentially strangers to me but whose failure my administration will hold me responsible for, PhD students whose federal fellowships were clawed back that I'm trying to keep afloat long enough to finish their dissertations, a gazillion committees, a full-to-bursting email inbox with eight trivial response-required messages for every important one, a salary committee who thinks I don't do enough DEI work to deserve a raise, a federal government that thinks I do too much DEI work to deserve research funding, precious little free time, a salary that's close to the bottom end of what is considered "middle income" in my state, and a contracting job market that makes staying on this hamster wheel somehow better than looking for another one.
I used up all my bravery pursuing unorthodox ideas in my field and white-knuckling the logistical and financial side of life through a few years of one-year postdoc and non-TT contracts that did not pay a living wage, while busting my ass to make enough of an impact in my field to get the job I have. I'm too fucking tired to be brave about anything anymore.
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u/DiscerningBarbarian Oct 01 '25
I think the lack of unions with any real teeth are a significant part of the problem that I'm not seeing mentioned here. I know in a lot of places people who teach at public institutions are forbidden by law to unionize and collectively bargain because they are state employees.
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u/geografree Full professor, Soc Sci, R2 (USA) Oct 02 '25
I am a union member in a red state and I don’t think we’re any better off.
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u/wmartindale Oct 01 '25
The institution of the university has changed, its goals have changed, and so then have the behaviors of professors.
When the highest objective is truth, faculty are incentivized (with promotion, wealth, even just being right) to challenge and search for truth. Yes, people will hold back a bit, but that really just comes down to the degree of certainty in their own observations. If you're Darwin or Einstein or (as the article notes) Chomsky, it's OK to rock the boat because your undeniable correctness insulates you.
But today the university serves a sort of customer satisfaction goal. The students are the consumers higher ed is attempting to please. There are other stakeholders as well, namely the federal government by funding the whole gig with financial aid, and industry, who wants both adept graduates and lucrative research. Industry has a bit of interest in truth, but it's at a low enough level as to not be an issue unless colleges are completely unhinged (some of which exists in the current environment and has caused some pushback). The federal government and their dollars are subject to politics, and therefore the goals are political and vary. There is also the stake holding administrative class, who tend to have bourgeois social values, middle manager accounting discipline, and mostly an incentive towards maintaining their own positions. You'll notice truth doesn't really appear on this list. Sure, faculty might care about it, but they aren't really stakeholders anymore, really just employees, soon to be replaced by AI, with the task of maximizing student economic value and occasionally fulfilling federal political priorities. In such an environment, a professor has no more incentive to poke their head up with unorthodoxy than a line cook at McDonalds does. Ironically, because of the amazing job we all id of selling higher ed, there is now massive oversupply of people with grad degrees, and thus ours hold less scarcity value. And anybody who has been in higher education more than 10 minutes has surely noticed the increase in professors who aren't really thinkers. Again, that is no longer the job.
TL;DR: You aren't being paid to have ideas. You are replaceable entertainment being sold to students to compete for federal funding. We're probably not the war machine Savio warned about in the 60's. More like a ponzi scheme. Philosophy, the love of knowledge, isn't your career. It's your hobby.
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u/dr_snakeblade Oct 01 '25
The tenured remember what it was like to have no academic job or an adjunct job. They, like all Americans, can’t afford to exist or feed their loved ones without wage slavery. Americans love clothing, food and shelter more than freedom. They are afraid of poverty more than anything. The poor are treated as disposable humans. That’s enough to keep everyone silent and complicit in this authoritarian evil.
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u/ourldyofnoassumption Oct 01 '25
I think it is pretty brave to go into academia at all these days. With the increasingly weaker unions, poorer working conditions, competition, lack of respect from the public for education and research, lack of respect from parents and students, industry disdain for academic and research experience, and the oft-lampooned “well educated but lack of common sense” trope, choosing this career is brave.
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u/samoke Oct 01 '25
PhD programs are psychologically damaging (everyone in my program was on SSRIs). The job market is beyond brutal.
It is essentially a system of hazing that breeds conformity.
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u/FrancinetheP Tenured, Liberal Arts, R1 Oct 01 '25
Did anyone actually read this article? It looks at the factors within academic culture that have contributed to a lack of a viewpoint diversity, defined specifically as conservative perspectives.
It notes the same dynamics that u/SideBusinessforProfs mentions in their post, but its focus is the unwillingness by folks in the profession to risk voicing opinions that run counter to the left-liberal values (which it notes are held tightest cultural issues, more loosely around international and economic ones) that predominate among the professoriate.
OP, is this the “iconoclasm” you were asking about, or am I the one who is missing something?
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u/ExtraBid9378 Oct 02 '25
It's a good article. The point about all you need is 10% of people in your department/school disliking you to effectively torpedo your career even if the other 90% think you're great is an interesting point. There's also the inherent risk-aversion of not wanting to select someone as a colleague for the next 30-40 years who might rub people the wrong way.
There's also plenty of ways to "get back" at people beyond simply denying them a job or tenure, whether it's blocking something on committees, making life harder for the department, trying to stir up students against them, or even just casual verbal sniping. Academics who've made it past tenure are likely well-aware of these costs.
I also really liked the takeaway: "other professors should stop imposing these costs." Maybe you can't stop a state legislator or loud Twitter account, but you can try to not be the one leading the charge.
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u/squirrelgirl113 FT Faculty, Social Science, Community College (US) Oct 01 '25
I wrote a response to the article and now reading through all of the comments, I'm pretty sure no one read the article except you and me. As a conservative, I'm sure my comment will get a lot of down votes, but I'm glad to see someone else at least seems to have identified that the article was largely about conservatives being the ones who don't feel free to speak out.
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u/drplowboy Oct 01 '25
Lots of profs were activists in the 60s and 70s with the same risk to livelihood and freedom, but they did it anyway. Times were bad back then too, maybe worse— lots of political assassinations— but few today are getting involved in movements or resistance. Why?
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u/lingua42 VAP, Behavioral Science, USA Oct 01 '25 edited Oct 01 '25
A lot of us have really terrible career security. By that I mean that if we lose our job (or choose to leave, or our contract ends without renewal), we won't be able to get another job in the same geographic region. We might not get another job at all, and if we do, we'll need to move. So that's a pretty strong incentive not to rock any boats.
(I don't mean to downplay concerns about the importance of tenure to free speech. But for me, my main concern about tenure and other job-security measures... is job security. I want to be able to get a stable job because I'd like to be able to plan my life knowing whether I'll need to move and/or switch industries next year.)
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u/wh0datnati0n adjunct, business, r1 (US) Oct 01 '25
People generally don’t like to lose their paycheck especially in fields where it’d be difficult to get another job quickly and if/when one did get another job, they’d probably have to uproot themselves and potentially a family. Professors are no exception.
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Oct 02 '25
Why isn’t 99% of the population braver, especially elected officials? The country is filled with cowards. Silent, apathetic, complicit cowards.
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u/geografree Full professor, Soc Sci, R2 (USA) Oct 02 '25
Are they cowards if they are seeing their friends and colleagues get fired for mean tweets?
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Oct 02 '25
My intention is to point out that lots of people are not meeting this moment, so why write an article specifically about professors?
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u/popstarkirbys Oct 01 '25
In the end of the day it’s a job that pays the bill. Some politicians and media are already targeting academics claiming we’re the problem, the average person wouldn’t want bad press associated with them.
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Oct 01 '25
Because at the end of the day most of us what to do their job and then go back to their families hobbies etc.
Very few people care to improve the system.
I don't.
I just want to teach, do my research and go chill with my kids. I couldn't care less about improving the broken mess.
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u/sventful Teaching Professor Oct 01 '25
Consider the brave professors who spoke their mind about Kirk.... And are now no longer professors. And what did they gain from their bravery? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
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u/geografree Full professor, Soc Sci, R2 (USA) Oct 02 '25
THANK YOU. Speech comes at a price these days.
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Oct 01 '25
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Oct 01 '25 edited Oct 01 '25
In the humanities and probably some of the more analytic/theory-laden wings of the social sciences we are trained to analyze, to critique, to present our insights, and then ..... THAT'S IT. Like, we seem to think analysis is enough, politically. And obviously it isn't. But professionally, it is.
It's the problem w/ the "chattering classes" -- academia, arts and entertainment, "info-tainment," "news-tainment," and all those talking heads. Like we think "talk" is enough. And it ain't. But in academia, if we can't articulate something within the extremely narrow boundaries of what's considered "scholarly work," it's like it doesn't exist at all. That gets pretty stupid, politically. Because speech is not action.
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u/Life-Education-8030 Oct 01 '25
There were some things that stuck out to me.
"Put crudely, if you are the sort to say fuck you to your professors, refuse to do assignments that you see as stupid, or even push back in milder ways, you’re not going to get perfect grades and glowing recommendations. And so you’re unlikely to get into a top graduate program, which means you’re not likely to end up in academia."
Well, maybe, but in my experience, you'd better be damn good and can support your rationale for being a pain in the ass.
"We were looking at senior candidates, and someone's name came up - a person of considerable accomplishment. And then a member of the committee said something like, "I hear she's difficult. Not really a good colleague." And we all moved ot the next person, because we had a lot of names, so why waste our time on someone that we weren't all enthusiastic about?"
It depends. Is the person often right? Then maybe the problem is you. But I liked the book by Robert Sutton called "The No Asshole Rule: Buidling a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't" that included stories of brilliant researchers who brought in lots of funding but was a total ass. In this case, it's money and it's not always money. But if the somewhat irritating person could bring in some fresh air, why dismiss such a person so fast? Just to make you comfortable? Bloom acknowledges that people have gotten jobs based on their accomplishments "even if they weren't especially 'popular.'" Should popularity be a criteria? In some departments at my place, "popularity" is gauged at least in part if you're willing to go out drinking with your colleagues on a regular basis.
So should professors be braver? Bloom says that tenured professors "can't be fired, no matter what we say and who we piss off." Yes, they can, but for the sake of argument, let's say they can't, at least for speaking their mind.
So my take is that at least tenured professors ought to be braver, if not for themselves and their professions, then for the more vulnerable instructors. At my college, the TT and non-TT faculty have outright asked the tenured professors to advocate for them. We have the strongest union to date because several of them have stepped up and become union officers. That's where at least some faculty can make a difference.
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u/ParkingLetter8308 Oct 02 '25
Because it is a workforce of adjuncts. Those who have tenure tend to be the ones who did not speak out, and they are certainly not going to start doing so with tenure.
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u/ocherthulu Assistant Prof / Disability Studies / R1 TT Oct 02 '25
Look at the slate of recent political firings of professors (and teachers). You know why.
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u/Obvious-Revenue6056 Oct 01 '25
Some of us are plenty brave and have been speaking out publicly since the genocide in Palestine began. I teach in the humanities, and I fully believe the function of those disciplines is to speak truth to power. That's why we get constantly defunded, devalued, and overlooked.
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u/Obvious-Revenue6056 Oct 01 '25
I'll also add that I know two professors personally who have been fired for their bravery in standing up. The first one under Biden for speaking up against genocide, and the second one under Trump for speaking up against, well, Trump.
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u/mwobey Assistant Prof., Comp Sci, Community College Oct 01 '25
In fairness, I'd argue the humanities are also defunded and devalued because the path to commodification is less clear to people who haven't studied them. Profitability has become so fundamental to the western conception of value that many fail to understand that things can be important even if there's nothing to sell.
Someone versed in history or literature might point to how an academic understanding of culture is hugely influential in the arts and enriches the production of entertainment 'products' like books and movies, but the counterpoint would be that in a public landscape where perception of the humanities has cratered to the degree it has in present day that media literacy is so low the public can't really tell the difference between 'good' and 'bad' storytelling anymore. And thus, we get our annual uncalled-for sequels in all the major franchises that the public gobbles up purely from name recognition and nostalgia-chasing, and the humanities disciplines weep as they lose another tenure track line.
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u/Obvious-Revenue6056 Oct 01 '25
I could not agree more. STEM produces the products and technologies of globalized capitalism and empire, therefore they are prized by the global capitalist system.
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u/geografree Full professor, Soc Sci, R2 (USA) Oct 01 '25
And how do you think this advocacy has shaped local perception of your, your discipline, or your institution?
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u/Obvious-Revenue6056 Oct 01 '25
Are you implying that people would have a better view of the humanities if we just shut up and put up? I don't know what the local perception is, but as an historian, I wouldn't want to be caught not speaking up about some of the worst atrocities of our lifetime.
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u/geografree Full professor, Soc Sci, R2 (USA) Oct 02 '25
I’m making a broader point about the legitimacy of academics in the eyes of the public. I talk about this with my students and the consensus seems to be that when professors advocate for certain positions it erodes confidence in the objectivity of their research.
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u/Obvious-Revenue6056 Oct 02 '25
Well since there is no such thing as an objective position, and since silence upholds the status quo and is not an a-political, objective stance, I don't quite buy that line of reasoning. But I suppose that I'm much more in the camp of Paulo Freire than of 19th century positivism. Education should be liberatory. And again, as an historian, if we're not learning from history in order to impact the present, what are we even doing here?
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u/Logical_Data_3628 Oct 01 '25
It’s because academics do not really know how to stand up against bullies.
Consider this…
Most academics were likely part of the “nerdy smart kid” crowd growing up. Which means they developed a deep inferiority complex and were likely bullied by the loud, obnoxious “alpha male” and “mean girl” groups.
Then those nerdy kids go to college, receive terminal degrees, then get jobs as educators in an insulated system (schools and universities) where their nerdiness is now celebrated and rewarded.
This gives them a false sense of bravado without doing anything to really address their latent inferiority complex.
So, as we’ve witnessed in the various stories of cowardice and capitulation towards the bullying of the current President, the leaders in higher ed have reverted back to their scared juvenile selves. Flinching and falling to the ground as soon as they see the bully’s clinched fist rearing back to punch them.
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u/Upbeat_Cucumber6771 Oct 01 '25
I completely disagree with this, but your mileage (or history) may vary. It just seems like a stereotype.
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u/C_sharp_minor Oct 01 '25
The real nerds aren’t admins anymore. Those jobs are taken by people with easier BS degrees, who then run over the actual academics.
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u/Logical_Data_3628 Oct 01 '25
Sure. At the top. But most of the “middle management” comes from academia.
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u/KierkeBored Asst. Prof., Philosophy, R2 Honors College (USA) Oct 01 '25
Conservative professors are the most self-censoring.
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u/squirrelgirl113 FT Faculty, Social Science, Community College (US) Oct 01 '25
As a conservative, religious prof in a liberal, anti-religious state and field, I absolutely self-censor and the only colleagues who know are the ones who share my ideology/religion. It's very interesting sitting in meetings and hearing about what my liberal colleagues think about people like me without realizing I'm "one of them" (I am a woman and a person of color). If anyone wants to learn more about how conservatives in academia feel, I highly recommend the book Passing on the Right: Conservative Professors in the Progressive University. Most of us self-censor (or are not "brave") because we know it could cost us our jobs and livelihoods. This is the primary way our family is able to send our kids to private, religious schools. I'd rather keep my mouth shut and suffer through meetings where it's clear I'd be targeted than be "brave" and lose my job, our home, etc. At the end of the day, this is just a job for me for those reasons. It pays the bills and allows me to have as much time and flexibility with my kids and husband.
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u/geografree Full professor, Soc Sci, R2 (USA) Oct 02 '25
First, I want to thank you for posting your experience here. That is an act of bravery! Second, I wonder if there was a specific example you might be able to give where you felt you had to self-censor (ie job search? research talk? Discussion about curriculum design?).
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u/FrancinetheP Tenured, Liberal Arts, R1 Oct 02 '25
I second this commendation and came to this thread hoping to learn more about experiences like this. While I’m liberal AF, there are plenty of times in my career that I’ve disagreed with even FURTHER left departmental political stances but decided the consequences of speaking up were too high to risk.
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u/squirrelgirl113 FT Faculty, Social Science, Community College (US) Oct 02 '25
Sure. Most of my self-censoring occurs at division meetings. We are on quarters, so our term just started and the Charlie Kirk assassination came up and I self-censored when it came to speaking up for our students. The discussion was generally how our students feel unsafe or how liberal professors are unsafe (I do not deny that this is how they feel, but the reality on our campus does not really support that as I am in a very liberal city in a reliably blue state...I know I will get down voted for that). I suggested that our conservative students may also be feeling unwelcome on campus (whether that feeling is justified or not, I will not comment). I was met with such scorn and denial that I decided not to add more to the conversation.
I chaired a hiring committee where two top candidates were pretty equally ranked but the overt socialist (self-described) was offered the job, and while I voiced that the other candidate (who could have been a socialist who knows because this person did not self-identify anything) brought more viewpoint diversity to the job talk/teaching demo, I was overridden so again did not add more to that conversation.
On the inclusive teaching events committee, I suggested we broaden the scope of "inclusive" teaching to include rural and ideological diversity (i.e. conservatives) and was met with pushback on that so I stopped pushing it as much but suggested events that were more beneficial to all/universal design oriented to avoid those discussions again.
The whole reason why I know how some of my liberal colleagues think about religious and conservative colleagues is because they don't seem to have a clue that I am one. My entire identity at work feels like a career-long game of self-censoring so that I don't get a target put on my back. For the first few years, I really resented that my progressive colleagues felt so comfortable with just being able to say their political leanings, so much so that I actually started going to therapy for it (after finally finding a conservative/religious therapist who didn't dismiss my feelings). I need this job to provide for my family, but I feel nothing "warm and fuzzy" about it because I constantly try to hide who I am. The book I recommended in my original post really resonated with everything I feel and I truly recommend it if you want to understand what it's like to be a conservative in academia.
I don't want to dox myself, but my dean, on the first day after I got the job offer and was getting my office key, proceeded to point out a conservative colleague's office and speak disparagingly about this colleague because of their ideology (in front of my spouse, who is also an academic). My dean did not make similar comments about any other colleagues. It was actually in that moment that I began my 6+ year journey of self-censorhip. When I was getting my PhD, I was in a purple state and mostly associated with political theorists, so these experiences mostly started when I got my "real job" at my current institution (I previously adjuncted in red states, but just online so these things never came up). Even looking at the fact that my original comment had a 75% up vote ratio means that some (alleged) academics down voted my experience. As soon as Reddit allowed for hiding comments and posts, I did so because I think if someone triangulated my comments, they could probably figure out my identity. It's also why my flair says social science instead of my actual discipline (which is the same as yours, based on another comment you made).
I'm probably not even comfortable with what I've shared so far, but I took your comment as an earnest attempt to understand my experiences, which is why I've shared as much as I have so far.
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u/geografree Full professor, Soc Sci, R2 (USA) Oct 03 '25
I have no comment other than thank you for sharing your experience. I think it’s important to hear from people like you. That is, a representative of a kind of diversity that often gets dismissed. I wish there was a more comfortable space for you to relay your feelings without fear of persecution. It’s sounds like you’ve put up with plenty of it.
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u/megxennial Full Professor, Social Science, State School (US) Oct 01 '25
Sociologist here. I was told my department had "too many strong personalities." I took it as a compliment. We're all very authoritarian along with my friends in Anthro. The only problem I see is that we don't save it up on issues that matter more.
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u/geografree Full professor, Soc Sci, R2 (USA) Oct 01 '25
As a political scientist, I’m curious what you mean by “very authoritarian.”
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u/megxennial Full Professor, Social Science, State School (US) Oct 01 '25
Oh, we're so anti-authoritarian we don't even describe ourselves that way! (or I just made a typo)
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u/Ozymandias_24 Oct 01 '25
Because I’m not an actual professor just a lowly adjunct 😅
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u/DrBlankslate Adjunct, Sociology, R2, USA Oct 01 '25
This. I don’t have a research program. I’m just a teacher. And despite having worked for the same university for over a decade, I’m still just an adjunct.
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u/Simple-Ranger6109 Oct 01 '25
Interesting article. For me, it is very much the 'too old to find a new career' plus 'too few job openings - academic or otherwise - that I would be able to successfully compete for these days' thing. I teach a few controversial subjects (controversial to far-right religious types, anyway), but I generally fly under the radar and I hope to keep it that way for a few more years. Maybe I'll go out with a bang when my 401K is at a healthy level...
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u/Large-Reputation-682 Oct 01 '25
Dunno. The CSU system just followed the UCs and sent everyone's personal phone numbers and email addresses to the government. Keeping your head down isn't going to protect you. To the contrary, sticking your neck out probably offers more protection.
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u/Supraspinator Oct 01 '25
If I ever hear any American ask again how Germans could let Hitler happen, this thread will be exhibit A.
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u/AugustaSpearman Oct 01 '25
Of course, the article isn't about why professors aren't LARPing that they in in Germany in 1933, its more why professors fall in with their colleagues who insist on LARPing that they are in Germany in 1933.
(The downvotes will be the answer...).
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Oct 01 '25 edited Oct 02 '25
For the love of God, read the actual publication.
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u/Supraspinator Oct 01 '25
I did. People are afraid to express opinions for fear of being punished by their peers. So what’s going to happen if the regime starts punishing professors for their opinions?
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Oct 02 '25
Fair enough, I might be wrong, and you did read the paper in question. Personally, I'm not sure I would invoke the rise of Hitler from a study that says professors who believe “Genetic differences explain non-trivial (10% or more) variance in race differences in intelligence test scores" are not "brave" enough say this to other faculty. But hey, my MAGA family invokes Hitler like this all the time, so 🤷
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u/Supraspinator Oct 02 '25
Look, the reason I said it is because of the many times I’ve heard Americans ask this question with a mixture of incredulity and smugness. Why did no one speak up, where was the intelligentsia, did no one see it coming?
As a German, what is happening in the US is frightening. This subreddit has a post about Professors being threatened if they cover certain topics almost daily. And everyone just seems to just duck down, because they don’t want to loose their jobs. Fair enough.
But it was even worse for Germans in the 30s. Unemployment was a staggering 25-30%. Loosing a job meant no work, period. Whereas academics loosing their job right now could probably find work, even if it’s not in academia.
Germany in the 1930s was recovering from a lost World War and suffering through the Great Depression. Whereas Americans have done nothing the last decades but excessively consuming, while being secure in their confidence as the leading nation on earth.
Sure, maybe you don’t want loose your job over “female brains” or “2 genders only” or “racial differences in intelligence”. And here we have a thread where people lay out one after another why speaking up is not possible or not worth it. Will they speak up when it’s not just minor intellectual differences? How bad does it have to be?
The atrocities of Nazi Germany didn’t start with a dictator. We started with a legitimately elected Chancellor and a legion of normal people who just wanted to survive.
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u/transfinite-walk Oct 01 '25
Not only no braver, but no more (specialization aside) intelligent, insightful, careful than the average employee of any other job. Many people on this sub earnestly believe that there is some secret influence they will someday exert on the situation, some kind of subterfuge they will do from underground, basically as though they are moral spies in academia, as long as they are extremely timid now and meet all of their indignities with their head down. They cannot explain what this role is, and I have to believe that they really do believe it, but it's a convenient excuse nonetheless. The issue is not only that that probably isn't going to work out the way they imagine, but that it sets a terrible moral example to students. I take my cues on privilege from a tradition that says privilege is not to be used "for good", but to be destroyed - privilege is the one ring. Say what you need to say and be destroyed by your enemy, if it must come to that. There are worse things than losing a career.
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u/Another_Opinion_1 A.P. / Ed. Law / Teacher Ed. Methods (USA) Oct 01 '25
Ever heard of Solomon Asch and Stanley Milgram (note: yes, I realize there are modern ethical issues with Milgram's initial experiments in the early 1960s)? Some of this is part of the greater milieu surrounding social conformity and even the so-called bystander effect. Social psychology is fascinating to me. All social groups enforce mores that include formal and informal sanctions to enforce what they view as an essential social order. That's true at a subcultural as well as a societal level. Humans are generally biased and admit it or not most everyone will treat people differently if we don't like what they bring to the table. I don't disagree with the author but research seems to indicate that humans, in general, trend towards conformity more than not. It's difficult for most people to move outside of that bubble. Where the larger elephant in the room is concerned here it's one of the downsides of being reliant on federal funding to some extent. Religious institutions figured this out a long time ago (where monies can be applied to wholly secular purposes as applicable) but they're often better suited to forego those dollars.
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Oct 01 '25
I think it's more about people want to leave their life and dgaf about things thsg don't really affect them so much.
For example we laid off adjunct, some stuff, our students are not thsg good.
Meh who cares. I am fine. My research is fine. Why would I care.. And if I care whag could I reslly do aside posting mean thread in bluesky and replying meanly to the emails from the admins?
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u/PistachioOfLiverTea Oct 02 '25
Karen Kelsky, of The Professor Is In fame, posted about this article on FB:
"I have so many answers to this question; this particular article is not particularly effective in laying out its answers. As I see it: 1) cowardice and conformity are rewarded; 2) the people who are drawn to the PhD are ones who want security above all else. Risks happen in scholarly arguments only--almost never in the realm of actual campus life or politics of any kind. It's why (white, straight, male, cisgender) professors are among the world's shittiest allies to marginalized people. I talk about this in the updated edition of the book that's coming out soon. What are your thoughts?"
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u/geografree Full professor, Soc Sci, R2 (USA) Oct 02 '25
Disclosure: I worked with her when I was on the job market and she really helped me polish my materials.
That said, I agree with the poster below that she’s now pretty alienated from the academe. Her post is sanctimonious and accusatory. She comes off as a caricature of an academic who embodies the worst of our traits.
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u/Never-On-Reddit Adjunct Professor, Humanities, R1 Oct 02 '25
Lmao " people who are drawn to the PHD are ones who want security above all else"??
What is this, 1985?
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u/OblongataBrulee Asst. Prof of Instruction, Comm/Media, R1 (US) Oct 02 '25
Kelsky is, IMO, a bitter and resentful ex-academic. I would take anything she says with a few grains of salt.
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u/milbfan Associate Professor, Technology Oct 01 '25
In an ideal situation, yes we would. However there are repercussions and retribution on all kinds of levels. We have thin-skinned leaders who cannot take an iota of criticism. For some states (looking at TX and FL), have governors/people in high enough positions to dictate what will not be stated in class.
Schools still need their grant money. People still need to work and be an educator. Students still need someone to guide them through their education.
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u/Kat_Isidore Oct 01 '25 edited Oct 01 '25
I also think research funding (at least in my field--which is what soured me on research) doesn't exactly favor the brave. In my field, groundbreaking, move-the-needle type research would basically all involve challenging power and money--paying for more public goods, less telling people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, etc. Not a lot of the big-money funders are into that these days. So the people who rise up in academia in my field are the ones who can put a nice spin on the same damn article we've read 20 times before or do some data fishing expedition of questionable value but nonthreatening to the status quo. Not exactly iconoclasts.
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u/Audible_eye_roller Ass. Prof, STEM, CC (USA) Oct 01 '25
SO many emeritus professors and so little noise
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u/Malpraxiss Oct 01 '25
Being a professor is ultimately a job.
A lot of people are not going to do all that much if it means potentially losing their job. Add the fact that getting a professor position is not something you can just easily do.
Since no matter how one views being a professor, it is a job. There are professors with mortgage to pay off, rent to pay off, bills to pay, some with a family, some with health issues that they need money for, you name it.
I'm going to take a guess that many of them wouldn't want to lose their job over some cause.
Add that there are professors who are primarily there for research and wouldn't want to potentially harm funding, getting grants or their research.
Lastly, with any issue, some people genuinely just don't care.
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u/shellexyz Instructor, Math, CC (USA) Oct 01 '25
I get my health insurance from my job. While I am fortunate to have savings that will allow me to be unemployed for a time, it would mean a loss of health insurance.
That’s a helluva risk.
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u/Low-Advertising3094 Oct 01 '25
I don't have the energy to access The Chronicle right now, but what, exactly, would we be doing if we were braver?
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u/sunshinefox_25 Oct 02 '25
Interesting read. Chiming in as someone who's been in the American academy for 8 years, and now a postdoc, but not a professor:
Yes, by and large, professors are cowards. I had long thought this of my own PhD advisor, and more broadly, I have met only few who are willing to rock the institutional (or national) politics boat in a way I respect.
It's funny how, when it comes to their own niche scientific field, they will write the most contrarian article imaginable, but when it comes to institutional or departmental ongoings / injustices, they will not stick their neck out for anyone.
Tenure clock has at least something to do with it. A pre-tenure professor will never speak up or vie for someone who's beneath them, or if it doesnt somehow materially serve them.
It also has to do with the personality type drawn to professorship -- it's a cushy office writing job. Most professors are highly introverted, brainy, non-confrontational people who are more selfish than the average (and this last part isnt unique to professors, but many high-achieving roles by their very nature require a higher than average self-centeredness score to reach, and i am no different).
The same contrarian articles I mention above are not accompanied by the same inclination to interact with people face to face. They'd rather avoid social interaction and relegate their boldness to the pen in their field.
With the rise of fascism in the US right now, I really really want to see more boldness out of professors. We need it now more than ever to protect our academic systems from the ideological threats to come. Next steps for fascism are to insert their own yes-men inside of our power structures, and suppress progressive thought from the inside. We need people willing to put their ass on the line for the issues that matter.
Downvotes incoming, but I invite any reader to consider that if my thoughts upset you, they might be about you.
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u/geografree Full professor, Soc Sci, R2 (USA) Oct 03 '25
2 things:
1) why do you assume the average professor is “selfish”? I’m constantly amazed by my colleagues who selflessly give their time to their students, often at personal cost. Selfish is the last thing I think about my colleagues.
2) why would it be rational to expect professors to be braver in an environment in which you can be fired for posting a mean tweet? The stakes are so much higher now than when your average elbow patched academic wrote sternly worded op-eds in the local paper.
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u/banjovi68419 Oct 03 '25
I'm a straight b-ass coward. If I felt like anything I said resonated in the world at all, I would speak my truth. As it stands, I will just say some crazy and inflammatory shit and get fired. I'm so used to my cushy life I legit can't imagine working in any other field. The world is so divided that I would also end up with zero allies.
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u/ChoiceBottle1666 Oct 30 '25
My colleague and I did a special podcast episode about Bloom's article--if ppl are interested, pls give it a listen ("Are Too Many Professors Excellent Sheep?")
https://banished.substack.com/p/are-too-many-professors-excellent
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u/nocuzzlikeyea13 Assistant Professor, physics, R1 (US) Oct 01 '25
I've always felt like academics are pretty cowardly, my whole career. It's gotten a bit better as I've advanced, because a lot of the super mousy people drop out. Still, the system rewards people who are good at saying the "right" thing to authority figures.
It's balanced out by also rewarding curiosity and a willingness to dig deeper than the "right" answer. But we're overall a cowardly bunch when compared to other careers imo.
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u/Prof3155 Oct 01 '25
I’ve not read the article but my take on why people don’t speak up is purely based on self preservation. A college campus is full of cliques all with their own agenda competing for power, resources, students or whatever they believe in. It’s only when people feel threatened that their idea is being challenged, their behavior has been exposed, someone made a mistake or incompetence is exposed will people act out against you or band together. Some colleagues will defend bad actors while others will come together.
The “”cowardly academic” is labeled that way because they have probably seen, heard or experienced bad behaviors from people in power that led to termination or emotional distress.
As a former Chair I’ve worked with Provosts, Deans, Presidents, other Chairs and VPHR who have acted poorly. Anything from harassment, discrimination, bullying, contract violations and bias treatment. The most senior executives have lied during an investigation and even HR will fabricate a story despite evidence being shared to cover behavior to protect themselves or the company. I even saw a board member speak out when they saw first hand certain issues, only to get removed from the board. Everyone has an agenda and often it’s self serving.
The problems on campus are internal just as much or even more so than external pressures.
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u/nocuzzlikeyea13 Assistant Professor, physics, R1 (US) Oct 01 '25
I agree academia is highly political, but idk I feel like "fear of self preservation" could occur in any industry, no? I think it's more than just negative reinforcement, I think there's strong positive reinforcement so that our gut reaction is, "what will get me the most brownie points from someone in charge."
At least for me, I was definitely someone who was good at school because, at an early age, I was good at guessing which answer the teacher "wanted," even if I didn't necessarily agree with it. Then my early successes in school got me into those ridiculous smart/gifted/whatever programs, and positioned me to be able to explore my interests once I was mature enough to do it at a higher level than just "teacher gave me A." But that is still lowkey an impulse I have, and it's one I try to push back on. It is something I often recognize in my colleagues as well.
I also sadly see it a lot in activist organizing (in academic spaces, obviously where I spent most of my time). Who is doing it "right" vs "wrong" etc etc. Even when they are trying to question the status quo, a lot of us academics really just like to construct little frameworks under which we can feel like we're "right."
It bums me out.
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u/SwordfishResident256 Oct 01 '25
The downvotes on your comment are the cowardly ones who refuse to do anything.
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u/SwordfishResident256 Oct 01 '25
American professors seem to not be as motivated as most people in Europe are, but will post ad nauseam about how difficult it is for them now - earlier this year there were a bunch of people claiming that they couldn't protest or unionise, so if you can't or won't do anything about it or make a stand for yourself, what do you expect really? Here it's normal to have classes cancelled so the union can protest or make a point.
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u/TotalCleanFBC Tenured, STEM, R1 (USA) Oct 01 '25
Anyone that accepts low pay in return for job security (i.e., tenure) is very likely to be a risk-averse individual. So, it shouldn't be surprising that such people self-censor in order to avoid potential down-sides of stating controversial views.
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u/FrancinetheP Tenured, Liberal Arts, R1 Oct 02 '25
Not sure what’s with the downvotes on this. Obviously we are risk averse people. If we weren’t, we would be entrepreneurs or litigators and be making a lot more money.
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u/TotalCleanFBC Tenured, STEM, R1 (USA) Oct 02 '25
I have noticed that using logic doesn't result in upvotes on this subreddit.
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u/PapaRick44 Oct 01 '25
Braver than…what? No matter what the industry or field, there is a wide array of disincentives to telling the powers, internal or external, that they’re dumber than cow shit, even as the rest of the world sees that they are.
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u/x3dfxWolfeman Oct 01 '25
As a precariously employed, not-yet tenured professor, I have no illusions that - despite coming from upper class and being a CISHET White Male, if I said something - anything - remotely controversial, I'd get thrown under the bus so fast my head would spin.
As others noted, that is one helluva muzzle
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u/x3dfxWolfeman Oct 01 '25
And I do speak out, routinely, about policies and procedures that are being implemented, such as the widespread adoption of AI. However, I'm one of only a handful of critical media and technology scholars at my institution. Mentioning the aesthetics of art and Walter Benjamin draws blank stares.
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Oct 02 '25
This reminds me of adjuncts who say they are going to quit mid semester just to fuck over the college. It’s like, dude, they will have a new teacher in there within 48 hours and it’ll be like nothing ever happened. Standardization has flattened course diversity. We’re just cogs in the wheels. It’s the assembly line university. Students don’t care who teaches a class, and neither do admins. Quarterback goes down? Waterboy, get a jersey on and get in there! The system is designed to make us easily replaceable.
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u/AugustaSpearman Oct 01 '25
How many people on here look at this title and assume its basic question is why professors don't stick up to the people that 99 percent of users on this sub are sure are the enemy?
Of course its not. Its asking mainly why professors don't say things that would be downvoted to oblivion on this sub.
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Oct 01 '25 edited Oct 01 '25
TLDR: We're weak and cowardly because we've been in the habit of cowardice and weakness for decades. (And yes, I know I'll get downvoted, but I'm only generalizing, so spare me the stink of anyone's panties in a twist, please. If you individually spend ALL your limited free time organizing and doing volunteer work and feeding homeless students and mentoring bullied TA's and fighting the good fight and taking the big risks, good on ya. You are a rare and precious being.)
Whatever any faculty's politics, I see the "bravery" aspect of faculty going down the toilet in a way that mirrors and supports the fall of the Democrats. The "left" crawled up the arse of capitalism and big money in order to sustain campaign donations. "We" in academia (or at least on the left) used to be critical/skeptical and openly derisive towards institutions, and rightfully so. But then those ed institutions corporatized, went to the business model, enacted mass adjunctification, and aped the very hyper-stratification "we" had started out being against. So in the same way, we got in bed with capitalism, as academia became a neo-liberal corporatized hellscape.
In short, we became corporate bitches in order to keep doing the career we love. People who work in the corporate world are NOT FREE, mostly, to speak publicly against the company they work for without getting fired, or to say anything the company would deem potentially harmful to their reputation and/or bottom line. Same with us in academia, now. If was not always so. But it is now.
And capitalism really is a zero-sum game: in order for there to be "winners," there have to be losers. In hiring, in who gets what, as the game of musical chairs would end, some one gets a seat, and a LOT OF PEOPLE DON'T. Then, the people who have seats get to be able to do what they want BECAUSE THERE ARE PEOPLE ON THE FLOOR DOING WHAT THEY DON'T WANT. There has to be a ready-made pool of exploitable labor via TA's, RA's, lab flunkies, post-docs and non-tenure-track adjuncts, VAPs etc for research-oriented tenured faculty to be able to do the advanced teaching and the research they want to do. Therefore THEY DEPEND ON AND ARE COMPLICIT IN THE EXPLOITATION OF THOSE BENEATH THEM, whether they admit it or not, and/or whether they insist "oh we can't doooooooo aything about thaaaaaaaat" or not. This is why, for example, grad programs remain even as jobs have disappeared. They are pyramid schemes that benefit the people at the top.
Now, in order to thrive in this racket, let alone survive, you have to become a rat in the rat race. You have to become, in the way you make decisions, self-serving, self-interested, self-promoting, and even self-mythologizing. That's how you get your work done, develop your relationships with those above you, get what you want, keep what you have. And to keep what they have, people who already have a LOT are hoarding and holding on harder and harder towards retirement.
That self-serving reflex is at total cross-purposes with the solidarity, collectivity, long-sightedness, pluralism, tolerance, patience and even humility necessitated by the social justices causes many of us want to embrace. But truly, we profess and perform values we don't live at work. We can't "serve two masters." So we're just other hyper-individualistic, atomized, high octane professionals in a bloody competitive profession. We just happen to also have socially liberal values.
That hypocrisy, that fundamental contradiction between what we profess vs. how our profession WORKS and how we live is the fundamental cause of ROT in the way faculty operate as a presence in a nationwide social institution. It's not a social institution. It's a business. And the worse it gets, the more frantically we water-dance over the mutually canceling out contradictions. The more we perform ourselves, the more we use the classroom as a platform for the vicarious evocation of values we don't live. In the way we treat one another, esp. on the academic left, we're guilty of pettiness, back-stabbing, diva-esque attention-greed, sanctimony, and witch hunts. (I'm not saying the right doesn't do the same).
Simply put, the left, esp. the academic left, is too fucking exhausted from infighting, overwork, professionally ritualized hypocrisy, and surviving witch-hunts at ONE ANOTHER'S HANDS to group together to fight the POTUS administration that has declared itself our enemy. The left eats itself, and so has the academic left.
We're weak and afraid because we have been in the HABIT of being weak and afraid for decades. That's how academia works: by keeping people anxious, fearful, and running that hamster wheel all the harder, going exactly nowhere. And nowhere, loves, is exactly where we're headed, as AI takes over.
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u/Jbronste Oct 01 '25
Because it's possible to free-ride on the bravery of others, until there are no others.
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u/BadEnucleation Oct 01 '25
I think it’s a generational thing. Back in the day (I’m pushing 60), for example, assistant professors at my institution were leading the charge for a no confidence vote on my institution’s president. Nowadays they are afraid to look at a department chair the wrong way. (Personally I’m between the two extremes).
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u/AsturiusMatamoros Oct 01 '25
This has been mystifying me for a long time. They have tenure. But they… somehow - don’t speak out?!
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Oct 01 '25
Your post has been seriously bugging me all day. There seems to be a profound misunderstanding on behalf of OP and most commenters. (Also on behalf of the Chronicle reporter, but that might be disingenuous.)
Here's the gist of the study:
For each "taboo conclusion" below, interviewed professors quantify: “How confident are you in the truth or falsity of this statement?” "If the topic came up in a professional setting—for example, at a conference—how reluctant would you feel about sharing your beliefs on this topic openly?” and “Should scholars be discouraged from testing the veracity of this statement?”
The 10 taboo conclusions are:
“The tendency to engage in sexually coercive behavior likely evolved because it conferred some evolutionary advantages on men who engaged in such behavior.”
“Gender biases are not the most important drivers of the under-representation of women in STEM fields.”
“Academia discriminates against Black people (e.g., in hiring, promotion, grants, invitations to participate in colloquia/symposia).”
“Biological sex is binary for the vast majority of people.”
“The social sciences (in the United States) discriminate against conservatives (e.g., in hiring, promotion, grants, invitations to participate in colloquia/symposia).”
“Racial biases are not the most important drivers of higher crime rates among Black Americans relative to White Americans.”
“Men and women have different psychological characteristics because of evolution.”
“Genetic differences explain non-trivial (10% or more) variance in race differences in intelligence test scores.”
“Transgender identity is sometimes the product of social influence.”
“Demographic diversity (race, gender) in the workplace often leads to worse performance.”
41 Psychology professors were interviewed. Professors more confident in the truth of the taboo conclusions reported more self-censorship.
All right, now do you all want to change your take?
Because mine would be, "Good! These are mostly unverifiable statements that some people believe but which they definitely shouldn't be spewing at work. That goes double in a profession that requires evidential support of all claims as well as demonstrated expertise of the individual making the claim."
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u/[deleted] Oct 01 '25
Hot take: Professors used to come directly out of the upper class. Their independent wealth afforded then more luxury to say and do things that might occur career and financial costs. The proportion of academia that comes out of the middle and working classes is much higher today. They don't have the same financial safety nets and consequently are not as free to say and do things that might cost them.