Culture of fear in places of learning. Faculty at NC colleges report anxiety over threats to academic freedom.

Instances like these indicate a newly aggressive climate toward the mission of academia and the open exchange of ideas, Berliner said. “When faculty feel threatened and when this kind of aggression is directed toward faculty, we can’t do our best work, and we need to be able to think freely and expose ourselves and our students to whatever ideas are pertinent to the issues of the day and to history in order to gain understanding,” he said.