College professors once taught free from political interference, with mostly their students and colleagues privy to their lectures and book assignments. Now, they are being watched by state officials, senior administrators and students themselves.
In Oklahoma, a student disputed an instructor’s grading decision, drawing the notice of a conservative campus group, Turning Point USA, that has long posted the names of professors criticized for bringing liberal politics into their classrooms. The instructor was removed.
In Texas, a student recorded a classroom lesson on gender identity that led to viral outrage and the instructor’s firing. Now, Texas has set up an office to take other complaints about colleges and professors.
And several states, including Texas, Ohio and Florida, have created laws requiring professors to publicly post their course outlines in searchable databases.
The increased oversight of professors comes as conservatives expand their movement to curb what they say is a liberal tilt in university classrooms. In the last couple of years, they have found sympathetic ears in state legislatures with the power to pressure schools, and their efforts have gained momentum as the Trump administration has made overhauling the politics and culture on campuses a focus.
But all of this, some professors and free-expression groups say, is leading to a wave of censorship and self-censorship that they argue is curbing academic freedom and learning.
“We’ve never seen this much surveillance,” said John White, a University of North Florida education professor who was asked to remove words such as “diversity,” “equity,” “inclusion” and “culture” from his syllabus. He said he changed his syllabus under threat of his course being canceled.
Lawmakers, and sometimes university administrators, argue that the new scrutiny and rules make for stronger universities at a time of widespread calls for more accountability.
Peter Hans, the president of the University of North Carolina system, announced in December that all 16 of its campuses, including the flagship in Chapel Hill, will create searchable databases of syllabuses starting in the fall. In a recent opinion column, he wrote that “more transparency” was the answer to increased scrutiny of higher education.
“Getting an honest, realistic look at how our faculty are trying to reach an anxious generation with depth and rigor should inspire more confidence in our public universities,” he wrote.
Conservative groups that have monitored campuses have applauded the moves. Sarah Parshall Perry, vice president of Defending Education, a group that has publicly posted college syllabuses, said more transparency will help parents and students decide which courses to take.
“Exactly what are you teaching that you’re ashamed of?” she said.
The scrutiny has been especially intense in departments like gender studies and Middle Eastern studies that touch on contested issues. Some professors say the new rules have turned teaching into a minefield in those disciplines, inviting online trolls looking for keywords and directing online mobs toward professors.
Jonathan Friedman with PEN America, a free-expression group, said in an interview that posting syllabuses so the public has a better grasp of what occurs in college classrooms may sound innocuous. But “publishing syllabi when it is coupled with this McCarthyist environment is really dangerous,” he said.
Some states, including Florida, have mandated that the syllabuses be in databases searchable by keywords. “There you see the clear aim to essentially scan and scrutinize for hot-button topics,” he said.
Professors are adapting to the new reality, in some cases looking for ways to provide only the bare minimum of information required or otherwise avoid scrutiny. One professor at a school where faculty must post their course plans said he now effectively has two syllabuses: one he will submit for public posting and another for students. He asked not to be identified for fear of retribution against his institution.
At the annual meeting last month of the American Historical Association, the largest gathering of historians, a panel titled “Queering and Gendering Your Syllabi in an ‘Anti-Woke’ Era” explored how to convey to L.G.B.T.Q. students that the course will be welcoming while avoiding online critics trolling for keywords.
A panel member, Dan Royles, a historian of modern America, said that he includes topics that indicate gay history will be covered without using words that conservatives have been trying to stamp out. For example, he notes that his class will include key events like the AIDS epidemic and the anti-gay backlash to disco.
“None of this is happening in good faith and we shouldn’t treat it as such,” Dr. Boyles said during the panel. He later added, “Minimum compliance is a good guideline here.”
Isaac Kamola, a Trinity College professor who has studied right-wing websites, said the current surveillance follows efforts by Campus Reform and Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA, which began singling out professors for their perceived liberal biases over a decade ago. Turning Point included a “watch list” of professors, leading to a torrent of critical and abusive emails to those who found themselves on it.
Now that governments and universities are involved, he said, “Everybody is walking on eggshells,” Dr. Kamola said. “Faculty are walking on eggshells. Administrators are walking on eggshells. Students are walking on eggshells. And what you get is the opposite of free speech.”
Some conservatives have pointed to efforts by left-leaning faculty and students to quell speech they disagree with — so-called “cancel culture” — that similarly sought to police and quiet right-wing speech. They say it upset the traditional balance, in which relatively conservative governing boards allowed faculties free rein over intellectual pursuits.
Professors should learn that “the lecture hall is not a place to push an agenda,” said Zachary Marschall, the editor in chief of Campus Reform.
Mr. Friedman, from PEN America, acknowledged that campuses faced free-speech threats from the left in recent years, sometimes leading to career consequences. But “nowhere in that was a serious effort to use the power of government,” he said, adding, “The stakes of this are simply much higher.”
Benjamin Robinson, an Indiana University professor, is one of those under the new microscope. In his class on the history of German thought, he touches on Kant, Hegel, Arendt and Nietzsche, connecting the thinkers’ big insights — “the aha moments” — to real-life experiences and contemporary politics.
In late 2024, a student anonymously complained, saying that Dr. Robinson — who has been vocal about his pro-Palestinian views — had spoken negatively about Israel, mentioned personal experiences like being arrested at a protest at the Israeli consulate in Chicago and “repeatedly spoke against Indiana University” during his classes.
The university found in favor of the student and reprimanded the professor, citing a recent state law meant to improve “intellectual diversity” and prevent students from being subjected to political views unrelated to the course.
The university’s provost, or top academic officer, said during a faculty meeting last month that Indiana’s Bloomington campus had received 10 complaints in 2025 under the new law.
Dr. Robinson said the vagueness of the law “is utterly chilling.”
“It establishes a hostile, suspicious relationship between faculty members and their students,” he said.
Rick Van Kooten, the dean of Indiana’s liberal arts college, wrote in a letter of reprimand to Dr. Robinson that his concern was not so much the speech related to Gaza or that he brought his personal experience into a lecture. Rather, he explained, he did it repeatedly, which risks “shifting the focus away from the academic content and toward personal political narratives.”
The professor received a written warning, which he said put his employment at risk under another provision of the viewpoint diversity law, which weakens tenure and mandates periodic reviews of faculty members by trustees.
Dr. Robinson, who is Jewish, acknowledged that he referred to Israel’s conduct as a genocide in class but he insisted that he never asked students to agree with him. He said he brought up his personal experiences of activism during a discussion of Kant and the philosopher’s distinction between private and public stances.
“If I can’t appeal to people’s intuitions, what it’s like to publicly use reason versus to have a private feeling of conscience,” he said, “if I can’t evoke what that feels like, I can’t possibly teach Kant.”
Vimal Patel writes about higher education for The Times with a focus on speech and campus culture.
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