(NEW YORK) — As a result of a dramatic escalation in political censorship, more than half the students at U.S. colleges and universities now study in a state with at least one law or policy restricting what can be taught or how campuses can operate, according to a new study by PEN America.
America’s Censored Campuses: Expanding the Web of Control highlights the unprecedented heights of government censorship of colleges and universities that spread nationwide in 2025. The report builds on PEN America’s work tracking educational censorship legislation since 2021, and analyzes the continued passage of state-level educational gag orders that restrict college teaching, the explosion of ideologically-motivated attacks on university operations (including faculty governance, academic curricula, and diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives), and the Trump administration’s vast weaponization of federal power to bend academic research and teaching to its ideological will.
“Censorship is, sadly, now an intractable reality on college and university campuses, with serious negative impacts for teaching, research, and student life,” said Amy Reid, program director, Freedom to Learn at PEN America. “With threats of formal sanctions and political reprisals coming from both state and federal governments, campus leaders and faculty feel they have no choice but to comply, and are increasingly acting preemptively out of fear. Politicians are expanding a sweeping web of political and ideological control over higher education in American campuses, reshaping what can be taught, researched, and debated to fit their own agenda. That’s dangerous for free thought in a democracy.”
Record year for state censorship
In 2025, state lawmakers introduced 93 bills censoring higher education in 32 states, with 21 enacted into law in 15 states, alongside five additional state policies. These laws are rapidly spreading, both geographically and in scope, often mixing and matching provisions from model bills from conservative think tanks. Many include confusing and contradictory provisions that foment uncertainty and cast a broad chill over campus life.
This was a record-setting year for state censorship of colleges and universities. 2025 saw the highest number of new laws censoring higher education in a single year (21), the highest number of states passing them (15), and the highest number of states passing these laws for the first time (8).
Since the passage of educational censorship laws began in earnest in 2021, measures against higher education have now been enacted in 23 states, potentially impacting more than half of the students enrolled in colleges and universities in the U.S.
The report identifies two broad types of laws driving this trend:
- Direct censorship, including educational gag orders restricting teaching about topics such as race, gender, LGBTQ+ identities, and U.S. history. These laws can target K-12 schools, higher education, or both. Lawmakers made 2025 a banner year, enacting 14 gag order bills into law – the most in a single year – including seven that target higher education. Five additional educational gag orders were issued or adopted through policies by state officials and university system boards.
- Indirect censorship, which refers to state laws that attack the practices and institutions in higher education that enable academic freedom to thrive, thereby indirectly chilling the climate for free speech. These laws include efforts to dismantle shared faculty governance, weaken or abolish tenure, exert undue political control over curricula, remake accreditation, and/or banning or hollowing out diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. An unprecedented 78 indirect censorship bills were introduced in 2025, with 20 enacted into law.
Notable examples of measures curbing campus expression include: Ohio’s SB 1, mandating “intellectual diversity” in every course, coupled with an undefined, blanket ban on DEI initiatives; Mississippi’s HB 1193, which bans DEI offices and imposes sweeping restrictions on teaching about race, sex, color, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, or national origin; Indiana’s HB 1001, Ohio’s HB 96, and Texas’s SB 37, all three of which reduce faculty senates to advisory status; and two major Texas public university system policies placing thousands of course syllabi under administrative review and forcing faculty to remove certain topics from course content.
Federal pressure intensifies
The report describes the historic campaign by the Trump administration to force ideological compliance from colleges and universities using multiple levers of state power, including withholding and cancelling research funding, dictating how scholars use words, distorting anti-discrimination law and civil rights investigations, and issuing ideologically-tinged executive orders. As the report authors explain, this has involved capitalizing on anxiety about free speech on campus that began over a decade ago, and was worsened by the reverberations of the war in Gaza that began in 2023, as well as exploitation of public concern about antisemitism.
Over the course of 2025, the report summarizes:
- An estimated $3.7 billion in federal research funding has been targeted for cuts, with projected annual economic losses of $10–16 billion
- 383 clinical trials affecting approximately 74,000 participants have been disrupted
- 38 universities have been proposed for suspension from federal research partnerships over DEI hiring practices
- Six universities have cut deals with the federal government to have their funding restored or to remain eligible for federal funding, four of which have agreed to pay $305 million in legal settlements to the federal government. The Trump administration has also sought a $1.2 billion fine from the University of California
- 19 executive orders issued in 2025 directly target or significantly affect higher education
- More than 8,000 international student visas have been revoked, contributing to a 17% drop in new international enrollment, with 57% of institutions reporting enrollment declines
This campaign of censorship has engendered significant pushback, including 56 lawsuits filed challenging Trump administration education policy. PEN America warns that even when courts later block some actions, the damage is often irreversible: research halted, programs shuttered, faculty dismissed, and a chilling climate imposed on campuses.
Governance and tenure under attack
As part of the expanding effort to exert ideological and political control over the higher education sector, the report details some of the key efforts to dismantle academic freedom for faculty, including by attacking shared governance and tenure and exerting undue political control over academic curricula and programs. Such indirect censorship is providing another line of attack for state lawmakers beyond direct restrictions on classroom teaching. These insidious attacks are increasingly successful, passing at higher rates than previous years and effectively weakening academic freedom.
Shared governance refers to the joint responsibility of faculty, administrators, and boards of trustees to govern institutions of higher education together, like three branches of government. Faculty in particular have long been respected as the arbiters of academic programs and curricula. However, attacks on shared governance and tenure are increasingly central to the censorship campaign. Texas’s SB 37 effectively eliminated faculty senates at public universities, while laws in Indiana and Ohio have also stripped faculty of meaningful authority over curricula and weakened tenure protections. It is not a coincidence that academic freedom is now diminishing in these states.
Indeed, as the report argues, as tenure has declined nationally—from 53% of faculty in 1987 to 32% in 2021—faculty have become increasingly vulnerable to political retaliation. The report documents numerous cases of faculty fired, suspended, or investigated following political pressure, including at least 25 faculty punished for social media speech after the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, many involving direct threats from elected officials.
“Viewpoint diversity” and ideological control
The report also details how ostensibly neutral mandates for “viewpoint” or “intellectual” diversity have become tools for government-imposed orthodoxy. At least 23 state bills introduced during 2025 legislative sessions invoke these terms, while the federal government has used similar language to justify funding cuts and oversight demands.
“The administration frequently justifies its actions in the name of protecting free expression, but the record shows its aim is to censor speech and exert control over the circulation of ideas,” says Jonathan Friedman, Sy Syms Managing Director of U.S. Free Expression Programs. “Upholding free speech has been a challenge on campuses for years, but that’s only being exacerbated by these state and federal lawmakers. The ‘viewpoint diversity’ they are pushing is not a value-neutral proposition about true debate or diversity of thought, or even free speech. It’s just a coded phrase being used to censor certain progressive ideas, while promoting conservative ones. The apparent aim is to turn colleges and universities into mouthpieces for the government. That’s not what our higher education institutions are supposed to be.”
A warning for the future
Looking ahead to 2026, PEN America warns of escalating attacks on shared governance, expanded use of political “jawboning,” new state accreditors tied to partisan agendas, continued weaponization of federal research funding and visa approvals, and a potential Supreme Court showdown over whether the First Amendment protects professors’ academic speech.
Despite the grim landscape, the report highlights growing resistance, including court victories, faculty organizing, and widespread rejection of the White House’s “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” by universities and national higher education organizations.
PEN America calls on lawmakers, campus leaders, faculty, and the public to resist efforts to turn colleges and universities into instruments of partisan ideology and to reaffirm the freedom to teach, learn, and conduct research without government interference.
About PEN America
PEN America stands at the intersection of literature and human rights to protect free expression in the United States and worldwide. We champion the freedom to write, recognizing the power of the word to transform the world. Our mission is to unite writers and their allies to celebrate creative expression and defend the liberties that make it possible. Learn more at pen.org.
Contact: Malka Margolies, [email protected], 718-530-3582