Majority of sanctioned professors said they did not receive support from union, report finds

A recent report from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression found faculty unions support conservative professors less frequently than liberal academics.

The free speech group polled scholars who were sanctioned between 2020 to 2024 from its “Scholars Under Fire” database to ask them for the effects of those punishments.

Incidents in the database included “a classroom remark on a controversial subject” or “a social media post” that drew student complaints, according to the report. Respondents described negative impacts such as “emotional distress (65%), loss of sleep (53%), and workplace shunning (40%).”

“Politicians are often unaware of campus controversies, administrators are frequently the ones enforcing sanctions, and faculty unions — expected by many to be champions of academic freedom — were largely absent,” FIRE reported. “In fact, 68% of scholars reported receiving no public support from their union.”

Professors were more likely to receive support from “non-academic friends,” “family members,” and “outside orgs.”

Just seven percent of conservative professors reported receiving union support, compared to 29 percent of liberal scholars. Conservatives were more likely to receive support from outside organizations, however.

Additionally, left-leaning professors were more likely to say the sanctions chilled their speech than conservatives.

The report came out just weeks after the Association of American University Professors said there are  fewer conservatives than liberals in higher education because the ideology of “fascism generally doesn’t do great under peer review” and the “intellectual values of academia, which emphasizes critical inquiry & challenges traditional norms … may be inherently less appealing to those with a more conservative worldview.”

The AAUP also said in an X post that “the pursuit of knowledge wherever it may lead does not appear to be a goal of the modern conservative movement.” 

Spokesman Kelly Benjamin has not responded to three emailed requests for comment in the past two weeks.

A researcher with FIRE provided further analysis of the results.

The finding about unions “is disheartening as faculty unions are expected to be champions of academic freedom and the speech rights of scholars,” Nathan Honeycutt told The Fix via email.

He is the manager of polling and analytics for the free speech group.

Honeycutt said that this lack of support for conservative professors makes many “afraid to speak up.”

“These fears are further compounded,” Honeycutt said, “and campus speech climates further chilled, when scholars who are targeted are left to fend for themselves.”

Honeycutt calls for “courageous faculty—or really more courageous people period—who are willing to stand up for their colleagues, even when doing so is difficult or unpopular.” Because “standing up for others is a test of integrity for higher education, and it is one the academy can no longer afford to fail.”

A former Villanova University professor who now works for a higher education reform group shared similar comments.

Steve McGuire, a fellow with the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, told The Fix faculty unions “have to give up their desire to advance political and ideological goals at the expense of being able to defend the academic freedom and free speech rights of all faculty members, regardless of their political views.”

“Whereas FIRE defends scholars across the political spectrum,” McGuire told The Fix that “conservative scholars are much less likely to seek help from the AAUP, for example, because of its demonstrated political biases.”

“Faculty who find themselves in trouble for their views are like wildebeests who have strayed from the pack,” McGuire said. “Seeing them attacked by censorious predators, most other scholars will run away and learn to stick with the herd.”

McGuire warned that this academic environment “naturally fuels self-censorship” and “is especially bad for right-of-center scholars because they are in the minority at most colleges and universities.”

This piece was originally published by The College Fix on November 18, 2025.