Law faculty feel unable to speak freely, survey finds

A survey released Tuesday found that faculty at law schools feel unable to freely speak. More than half of faculty said they at least occasionally feel unable to express their opinions because of how students, colleagues, or the administration would respond. That number jumped to 72% for faculty who said they were conservative, and sat at 50% for liberal faculty, according to the organization, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, or FIRE. The sample of interviewed faculty included three times as many liberal-identified faculty as conservative ones.

Law schools should teach students to grapple with all sides of an argument, but that becomes harder when faculty feel they can’t speak freely, said Nathan Honeycutt, a manager at FIRE. The organization interviewed nearly 2,000 law faculty across 192 of the 198 American Bar Association-approved law schools for the survey.

What else did the survey find?

• The majority of law faculty said diversity, equity, and inclusion statements were unjustifiable as a condition for hiring or promoting.

• Around 58% of faculty reported that American legal education was headed in the wrong direction, especially in its ability to prepare students for real life.

• The faculty said their colleagues had more political bias than they reported in themselves. For instance, 56% of faculty said their colleagues would punish a notably conservative job candidate. Only 22% said they themselves would do the same.