Most academics in the United States, Britain and Canada do not support dismissing politically-incorrect academics. In a major new report for the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology (CSPI), I draw on the largest set of surveys of academic and graduate student opinion to date to show that only 1 in 10 academics in the social sciences and humanities back campaigns to dismiss professors who report controversial findings around race and gender. In general, graduate students are at least 10 points more likely to favor dismissing controversial staff than academics the same age.

At Cambridge University, over 80 percent of more than 1,500 staff voted for Dr. Arif Ahmed's motion to replace a suggested university policy mandating 'respect' for others' beliefs with a more classical liberal duty to 'tolerate' others' beliefs. The picture that emerges of academics in the social sciences and humanities (SSH) in the US, Canada and Britain likewise suggests that most have a stronger free speech orientation than many conservatives or moderate observers assume.