Academic Self-Censorship Under Trump: The Latest Middle East Scholar Barometer Findings
by Marc Lynch and Shibley Telhami
For the last few years, we have been conducting biannual surveys of Middle East academic experts about issues related to the region and to the profession. We fielded the eighth wave between January 31 to February 19, 2025, netting 614 respondents. The survey captured the opening days of the Trump administration – before, it is important to add, the full scale of its assault on academia had emerged. We repeated a number of questions from earlier surveys and added new ones, as we attempted to understand how scholars working in this area were navigating the new political reality – and given how bad things already were for most of them under Biden, if anything had really changed. (The full questionnaire and results will be posted here.)
The Trump administration has put unprecedented pressure on higher education through the cancelation of grants and changes to overhead rules, investigations by the Department of Justice and Department of Education over alleged antisemitism (as well as DEI/race, transgender, and climate change issues). Its assault on universities built upon practices put into place under the Biden administration to rapidly accelerate the assault on free speech and academic freedom. Trump has demanded an even harsher response from universities towards protestors, with the Department of Justice visiting ten high profile campuses to investigate alleged antisemitism and the Department of Education listing no less than 60 campuses for investigations related to antisemitism and another 50 over DEI. It came to a head with the brazen intimidation of Columbia, including the detention of Mahmoud Khalil, the cancelation of $400 million in federal grants, and demands to put the Middle East, Africa and South Asia Center into receivership.
Small wonder that the AP recently reported that “In the span of a week, a hush has descended on higher education in the United States” as international students and faculty went quiet for fear of losing their visas or worse. As we have written in the Chronicle of Higher Education and other venues, our surveys show that the hush has been building for longer than that. Since the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, and especially since the eruption of wide-scale student protests against an Israeli war on Gaza which many viewed as genocidal, American colleges and universities have faced – and too often initiated – unprecedented assaults on academic freedom and the rights of students and faculty. From above, higher education faced pressure to respond more forcefully to student protestors from Congressional inquiries, Title VI discrimination complaints, pressure from donors and trustees, and highly mobilized external advocacy groups and media campaigns. Too many administrations went above and beyond in their repression of speech and protests, while those who did not (and even many who did) faced political pressure from Congress or state governors for their perceived weakness. From below, faculty and students struggled to accommodate student sensitivities and to navigate political peer pressure from within their own ranks. Faculty and students alike faced that pressure with little support from their administrations or scholarly associations. In the spring of 2024, an astonishing 83% of respondents to our survey said that they felt the need to self-censor when discussing issues related to Israel and Palestine in a professional capacity.
Our new survey reflects an environment in which the intensity and pace of campus protests have subsided, but the overall environment has remained oppressive and uncertain as political pressure from above has increased. Self-censorship remains rampant while actual censorship appears to be increasing. The percentage of US-based Middle East scholars who say they have personally experienced new pressures or restrictions from their institutions related to the Gaza war has risen to 43% in this round compared to 34% in the fall of 2023. When asked about the reasons why they self-censor, the percentage citing legal restrictions on their speech more than doubled, from 14% to 30%. And as bad as it was under Biden, it’s getting worse: 57% say they feel greater need to self-censor when discussing the Israeli-Palestinian issue since Trump took office and 84% expect campus leadership to be more severe in responding to campus demonstrations (they obviously have not been proven wrong). And while scholars of the Middle East have always faced pressure over issues related to Israel and Palestine, 78% now say that the period since October 7 has been the worst or among the worst of their professional career.
While the protests from last spring have for the most part not returned at the same level of intensity, the restrictions on campus free speech have predictably not eased. Repressive restrictions have become the new normal. Almost 60% of respondents said that their institution had implemented new restrictions on demonstrations, and 45% report new restrictions on permissible speech. One intriguing trend is that the enormous gap in perceptions of the performance of higher education leadership in general and their own institutions has somewhat faded. In spring 2024, 40% said that their own campus leadership’s response to the demonstrations was severe, compared with 77% who gave that rating to the response of higher education institutions broadly. In the new survey, 46% rate their campus leadership’s handling of the tensions generated by the war in Israel and Gaza poorly and 38% say the same about the handling of the critics of campus demonstrations. We suspect this is less because of a greater appreciation of national higher ed leadership and more because respondents are now exposed to fewer of the daily social media and television reports of brutal crackdowns at high profile universities such as Columbia, UCLA, the University of Texas and George Washington University.
Do Middle East scholars see a campus crisis surrounding antisemitism to warrant this unprecedented federal intervention? While the spring protests certainly polarized campuses and made some Jewish students and faculty feel targeted, only about 21% of our respondents see antisemitism as prevalent on their campuses (with 4% saying “a lot” and 17% “somewhat”) — far too high a number, to be sure, but a far cry from the impression of rampant and virulent antisemitism in the headlines. However, about twice as many respondents as those saying antisemitism is prevalent say that anti-Israel sentiment is prevalent at their institution — 47% (17% say “a lot” and 30% “somewhat”) — showing that many respondents make a distinction between antisemitism and anti-Israeli views that many today want to erase. In comparison, 49% say anti-Muslim attitudes are prevalent on their campuses (12% say “a lot’ and 37% “somewhat) and 57% say anti-Palestinian attitudes are prevalent on their campuses (25% say “a lot” and 32% “somewhat.”
That battle is playing out in pressure to adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism, which incorporates some forms of criticism of Israel– especially after Harvard succumbed to the demand in its settlement of Title VI cases. Only 14% of our respondents say that their institution has adopted IHRA definition of antisemitism, but it’s striking that 42% say they don’t know, which is quite an unusual degree of ignorance for scholars directly affected by such a decision. Adopting such a definition alongside federal or state level crackdowns on ‘antisemitism’ could make it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to teach or research about virtually anything related to Israel, Palestine, or the Middle East. When asked directly about the effects, 73% say adopting it would impact their work negatively and only 1% say it would have a positive effect.
A significant number of our respondents took the optional step to write comments about their experiences, especially on direct and indirect pressures they felt. The distribution of the comments reflected the poll data showing that 83% of our self-censoring respondents worried most about criticizing Israel while 11% worried about criticizing the Palestinians, with more comments focusing on the former than the latter, including pressure from outside groups or university administration, with some giving personal examples of their classroom speech being used against them. Though fewer, numerous respondents described social and academic pressure from their peers to avoid criticism of Palestinians, as well as personal experiences of discrimination some have encountered as Israelis or Jews.
In short, Middle East Scholars have long felt the need to self-censor when speaking professionally, especially about the Israeli-Palestinian issue. That intensified after October 7, during the Biden administration. But the steps taken and threatened by the Trump administration have taken the mood into a whole new level where it threatens the scholars’ ability to freely do their basic jobs of teaching and research and, as some expressed, even holding on to these jobs. Given all that has happened over the last month, we expect that a snap survey repeating these questions would show even more significant self-censorship and fears for the future.
We also asked our respondents their views and expectations about Israel and the Palestinians, and other regional issues? Views about the fundamental nature of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have not changed much since last year, we found, but respondents have become more pessimistic about some key aspects. 56% say that a two state solution is no longer possible, up from 46% last year, while 38% say it’s possible but improbable and 4% say possible and probable in the next 10 years. 64% say the current situation is “a one state reality akin to apartheid”, virtually unchanged from 2024. If there is no two state solution in the next ten years, 76% expect to see a single state akin to apartheid and only 3% expect to see one state with equality. None of those responses about long term trajectories have significantly changed since we began asking these questions several years ago.
There have been more significant changes about views of the war in Gaza and expectations for the Trump administration (again, recall that the survey took place before the recent collapse of the ceasefire). One of the most notable changes is that 45% of our respondents now describe Israeli actions in Gaza as genocide, up from 32% a year ago. Another 36% view it as major war crimes akin to genocide, while only 4% say Israel’s campaign has been “justified under right to self-defense.” 68% think collapse of the PA during the Trump administration is likely or very likely, while 62% expect a new and more violent Intifada. 85% see Israeli expulsion of some or all Palestinians from Gaza as likely in that time frame (52% say very likely), while 82% say the same about the West Bank. 91% see Israeli annexation of part or all of the West Bank as likely (54% say very likely), while only 77% think the same about Gaza. Only 2% expect the creation of a Palestinian state in West Bank and Gaza during the Trump administration. Biden and Trump officials alike will be pleased to learn that 63% expect Saudi Arabia to normalize relations with Israel anyway.
We were in the middle of our survey when President Trump announced his bizarre plan to displace Gaza’s devastated Palestinians, followed by an American ‘ownership’ of the ruined strip and an American development of the territory, turning Gaza into the ‘riviera of the Middle East’ for the ‘people of the world’ to live. The chilling effect was evident in some of our poll results: Even before the plan was announced, 55% of our US-based respondents in our poll had already said that they felt an increasing need to self-censor when addressing the Israeli-Palestinian issue professionally since Trump came to office, but the number rose to 61% after the plan was announced. Before the plan, 47% of respondent said expulsion of some/many Palestinians from Gaza was “very likely.” That assessment shot up to 61% after the plan.
Does all of this make the United States stronger? Not according to the surveyed academic experts. Only 8% expect the US to be in a stronger position in the region ten years from now, while 69% expect it to be weaker.
Marc Lynch and Shibley Telhami
Photo “Bound by Silence: Suffocated Senses & Shattered Echoes” by Ed-Lamarr G. Petion.
Collective Statement for the Diptych: Title: "Bound by Silence"
The Diptych serves as a visual dialogue on the theme of stifled free speech, depicting the interconnected struggles faced by marginalized communities. The symmetrical barbed wires, adorned with stars and watchful eyes, represent the pervasive systems of surveillance and control that perpetuate suppression. Through the diverging narratives of the black man and woman, the diptych highlights the dual dimensions of oppression— the denial of the right to speak and the deprivation of the right to hear.
