(The Center Square) – Faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison named the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as the most difficult issue to discuss on campus with racial inequality and affirmative action ranking second and third, according to a new faculty survey.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict was named by 59% of faculty while racial inequality was listed by 42% and affirmative action by 41% in the poll from the Foundation of Individual Rights and Expression.
The poll of 124 faculty at UW-Madison showed that 13% had been disciplined or threatened with discipline, 30% recently toned down something they wrote out of fear of controversy and 60% were in favor of institutional neutrality.
The university told school leaders not to pick sides in political debates while adopting viewpoint neutrality in September.
“The McCarthy era is considered a low point in the history of American academic freedom with witchhunts, loyalty tests, and blacklisting in universities across the country,” said FIRE’s Manager of Polling and Analytics Nathan Honeycutt. “That today’s scholars feel less free to speak their minds than in the 1950s is a blistering indictment of the current state of academic freedom and discourse.”
Nationwide, faculty said in the poll that 70% experienced difficulty discussing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict while racial inequality (51%), transgender rights (49%) and affirmative action (47%) were also named.
The faculty also were mixed on if school administration protects free speech with 38% saying it is somewhat clear, 25% saying it is very clear, 18% saying it is not very clear, 14% saying it is extremely clear and 4% saying that protection is not at all clear.
UW-Madison faculty said that 65% were liberal, 20% moderate, 9% conservative and 7% were other.
Most faculty (58%) said they never have to hide their political beliefs in an attempt to keep their job while 18% said it needs to be done rarely, 11% occasionally, 7% fairly often and 6% said it happens very often.