Julian HamannMar 2

Based on a representative survey of academics at German universities, Christiane Thompson and I find little support for "canceling" controversial views on campus. Instead, universities are widely expected to facilitate debate on controversial issues.

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11024-026-09631-4

Our two main findings:

Show threadJulian HamannMar 2
1) Across disciplines, status groups, and genders, the majority of respondents expect their universities to create a discursive space for controversial issues and what we call "academic citizenship". Academic freedom thus emerges as a collective, institutional practice, not just an individual right.
Show threadJulian HamannMar 2
2) Based on our descriptive analyses, political orientation seems to shape which institutional response academics prefer. Irrespective of the issue(!), left-leaning respondents seem to favor deliberative formats, right-leaning respondents prefer authoritatively responses to controversial issues.
Show threadJulian Hamann
Perhaps it's important to emphasize that there are different explanations for these political preferences: one is that the political orientations, by definition, imply preferences for either more deliberative or more authoritative approaches to deal with controversial issues.
Mar 2 at 10:18amWeb
Show threadJulian HamannMar 2
The other explanation is that right-leaning respondents are in the minority on campus (1,4%) and thus rely less than left-leaning respondents (38,1%) on the deliberative means of academic discourse to resolve controversial issues in their favor.