A report indicates that only 20% of university faculty believe a conservative would fit in well in their department.

A recent study indicates that just 20% of university professors think a conservative would fit comfortably in their department.

Over a three-month period, a survey conducted by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) involved 6,269 faculty members from 55 major colleges and universities.

The report found that faculty members were more likely to express skepticism about conservatives being welcomed in their departments, with only 20% saying a conservative individual would fit in "very" or "somewhat" well, compared to 71% who said the same of a liberal individual.

A campus atmosphere was found to be fraught, with many survey respondents admitting to concealing their political beliefs to avoid criticism.

Nathan Honeycutt, the Manager of Polling and Analytics at FIRE, drew a parallel to the Joseph McCarthy era in order to emphasize the significance of the reports' findings.

According to Honeycutt, the McCarthy era was a low point in American academic freedom, characterized by witch hunts, loyalty tests, and blacklisting in universities nationwide.

"The current state of academic freedom and discourse is being criticized by today's scholars who feel less free to speak their minds than in the 1950s."

Conservative faculty were more likely to self-censor than their liberal and moderate colleagues, with over half of them admitting to occasionally concealing their political views to maintain their employment.

A majority of liberal faculty did not feel the need to conceal their political views.

"Few conservative faculty members are expressing their views, which means students are less exposed to conservative perspectives than expected, according to Honeycutt."

On campus, having an open and honest conversation about "hot-button political topics" is challenging for 87% of faculty, according to other findings in the report.

Since the 1950s, more professors have toned down their published works to avoid controversy, with 35% expressing this sentiment, which is four times higher than the social science faculty reported in the same regard during that time period.