PEN America
PEN America first articulated our definition of “indirect censorship” in 2023: “Rather than simply taking away faculty members’ right to speak, many conservative lawmakers are going after the support structure that makes faculty speech possible, imposing direct political and ideological control over university governance.” In addition to state-mandated institutional neutrality, we also count as indirect censorship legislation that eliminates faculty tenure, abolishes faculty senates, asserts state control over the process of determining college curricula without faculty input, and so forth.