A new ProMarket survey of scholars reveals that while most view federal funding cuts under the Trump administration as a major threat to academic freedom, nearly half also see ideological bias within universities as a serious issue. The survey also found that many disagree with Columbia’s approach of capitulation to the Trump administration’s demands, and would prefer to see universities defend themselves in court or through collective action.
While professors view the Trump administration’s ideologically motivated federal funding cuts as a threat to academic integrity, about half are also concerned about how ideological and political bias influences their fields of study, according to a new survey conducted by ProMarket at the 2025 Stigler Center Antitrust and Competition Conference.
Several schools have been targeted by the White House with demands ranging from changing admissions processes to auditing departments for ideological bias.
Although the Trump administration is focused on antisemitism and “woke radical leftists,” many academics view ideological and political bias within their own fields with growing concern.
“It pervades just about every field of academia that I know something about,” said Stephen Haber, professor at Stanford University, during a panel at the conference.
Federal Funding Cuts
The Trump administration is using billions in federal funding as leverage to attain concessions from universities, even pursuing a consent decree in its lawsuit against Columbia University, from which it has already stripped $400 million in funding and obtained capitulation to many of its requests. Ten schools are under scrutiny by a Department of Justice task force. On Tuesday, Harvard University became the first of these institutions to publicly reject the administration’s demands.
In ProMarket’s poll of academics, primarily comprising economics and law professors from leading research universities, nearly 80% cited federal funding cuts as one of the greatest threats to academic integrity.
“While all threats are important, all pale in comparison to the magnitude of the illegal withdrawal of federal funding for ideological and political reasons,” wrote Nolan McCarty, professor of politics and public affairs at Princeton University.
In contrast, Haber cited historical examples of federal funding with particular ideological aims to show “that the federal government is not a disinterested actor.”
Haber included a tale of his own fellowship–which pulled him out of working in a dog food warehouse–that was created during the Eisenhower administration to generate expertise in science, math, foreign languages, and foreign societies. “One does not have to be a consumer of conspiracy theories to draw the inference that its purpose was to produce a talent pool from which the CIA could recruit,” Haber said.
The White House has cited antisemitism as one reason for its interventions at Harvard. It also claimed the interventions are intended to decrease the power held by faculty “more committed to activism than scholarship.”
Andrew Ferguson, Trump’s lead at the Federal Trade Commission, gave remarks on free speech at the same conference where the poll was taken. He made it clear that he viewed universities as liberal institutions that censor dissenting views. If citizens want “left-wing apparatchiks to curate or inspect their ideas prior to public dissemination they would content themselves to sit…inside a university classroom,” said Ferguson.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump lambasted Harvard for hiring “almost all woke, Radical Left, idiots and ‘birdbrains.’” The president indicated that Harvard should no longer receive federal funding because it “teaches Hate and Stupidity.” He has since moved to have the IRS strip Harvard of its tax-exempt status.
An Absence of Viewpoint Diversity
ProMarket’s survey revealed that academics are also concerned about the role that bias plays in university settings, although the question did not specify how these biases manifest. Of the participants, 47% listed “ideological commitments or political orientations” in their field as among the greatest threats to academic integrity. One scholar wrote that they viewed “lack of viewpoint diversity” as the top threat.
Journalists were polled separately at the conference. While bias was not cited as widely as a top concern, one anonymous journalist listed “activist and partisan” attitudes as a top threat to the media, saying it was resulting in a loss of public trust.
While poll respondents were anonymous, all were attendees of the Stigler Center’s annual Antitrust and Competition Conference at The University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. The event hosted scholars from around the world to engage in panel discussions on the impact of economic concentration on freedom of speech and the marketplace of ideas. Of them, 19 responded, most anonymously, to a survey on the current threats to academic freedom.
Cynthia B. Meyers, professor of communication at the College of Mount Saint Vincent, pointed out at the conference that the issue of consensus “prevents research that doesn’t fit in with that consensus from getting published.” Meyers said that professors are often hired based on “whether or not they fit into the department,” more so than whether they bring new ideas.
Nicolas Petit, professor of competition law at the European University Institute, asked a panel on academic independence, “how important is ideological disclosure alongside financial disclosure?”
Professor Tommaso Valletti of Imperial College London, responded saying that researchers should disclose “everything,” so long as the list isn’t so long as to bury important conflicts.
Valletti supported his point by citing a recent Stigler Center working paper he co-authored, which found that disclosed political conflicts of interest reduced economists’ trust in academic papers by 17% on average, but most important was the political leanings of the reader. According to the authors’ findings:
“On the one hand, Republicans distrust Democrats regardless of the result they find. On the other hand, Democrats believe the results they like even in the face of a conflict of interest. The implication is that both Republicans and Democrats think conflicts of interest are important. Yet, for Republicans, ideological conflicts are more important than economic ones, while for Democrats, economic conflicts are more important than political ones.”
The panel discussed a variety of alternative ways to fund research, from raising student fees to relying on corporate donors. While all the panelists generally viewed federal funding positively, professor William Kovacic of George Washington University mentioned that “none of these options come without serious side effects,” including money from the government.
The Case of Columbia
Though the sample is a small group of professors focused on law and economics, most (74%) said they disagreed with Columbia’s strategy in dealing with the Trump administration. Only one agreed, the rest were neutral.
“Appeasement never works,” wrote one respondent.
Another scholar took things a step further, indicating that by conceding, Columbia had undermined universities’ legal position. This perspective was echoed by others, including McCarty, who wrote that, “Columbia should have challenged the Trump admin[istration’s] actions in court where they likely would have won and deterred future transactions.”
Harvard views the White House demands as illegal as well, indicating that the administration’s demands violate its First Amendment right to free speech, as well as its statutory rights enacted by Congress.
Some scholars were more sympathetic to Columbia, pointing out that the institution was acting alone without the support of other schools. As one professor asked, “what is one uni[versity] supposed to do alone? Any position taken by Columbia has implications for their entire community including foreign students, staff who suffer from funding cuts, etc.”
Blame extended to other schools, as academics appear to have become frustrated at the lack of a coordinated response to the demands of the Trump administration from higher education as a group.
“My concern is less with Columbia per se,” wrote one academic, “than the lack of a collective response from university administrations that are not immediately in the cross hairs of government attacks.”
Nonetheless, respondents acknowledged the difficulty of Columbia’s administration, especially as it was the first school to be targeted with funding cuts. “I sympathize, and perhaps the fate of the university was at stake,” wrote one professor, “but very distressing.”
Articles represent the opinions of their writers, not necessarily those of the University of Chicago, the Booth School of Business, or its faculty.
