In addition to those seeking to leave their states, 4 percent of all survey respondents said they sought employment in another country last year.
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One in 10 faculty members working in states that restrict academic speech are seeking jobs out of state, according to survey data released this week. Six percent reported they are trying to leave the academy altogether.
The new data on relocating researchers underpins anecdotal stories about faculty members fleeing red states in search of greater academic freedom. Researchers with Ithaka S+R, a nonprofit higher education consultancy, surveyed 4,003 researchers at U.S. four-year colleges and universities via email about a slate of topics, but their first look at the data is focused on academic freedom in research.
In addition to those seeking to leave their states, 4 percent of all survey respondents said they sought employment in another country last year “due to restrictions on their research activity,” the report states. Several respondents explained in open-ended comments that they’re considering early retirement due to the current political climate.
Trying to leave the state and successfully leaving are two very different things. Plenty of obstacles can leave faculty place-bound: salary requirements, family obligations and an increasingly competitive academic job market, to name a few. Faculty in certain disciplines may also have an easier time than others finding a new job. For example, Choose France for Science—the French faculty-recruitment effort that capitalized on the political moment to lure American talent—focused on health, climate, space, digital and agriculture researchers.
“It’s not as if all of the universities in more welcoming states are building out their women’s studies programs,” said Dominique Baker, an associate professor of education and public policy at the University of Delaware. “There are lots of quote-unquote ‘blue states’ making bananas cuts to their humanities programs.”
About a quarter of survey respondents said they work in states that have enacted laws or policies “restricting academic freedom or institutional autonomy” in ways that limit their creative activity or ability to conduct research. One in five said they have avoided pursuing certain research topics due to those policies.
The researchers say 21 states have enacted “divisive concepts or similar legislation,” which limits postsecondary instruction “while imposing new requirements and restrictions in areas such as curriculum and shared governance,” according to the report. Those states are Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming.
In those 21 states, 48 percent of faculty respondents said that recent state laws and policies limit their creative activity or ability to conduct research. Twenty-nine percent of faculty said they’ve limited which research topics they pursue because of the laws.
Federal grants, and the lack thereof, remain top of mind for faculty, the report shows. Eight percent of faculty reported having at least one federal grant canceled in 2025, and 40 percent reported that the amount of overall funding available to them declined in 2025 due to federal policy changes. This was especially true for agriculture researchers—57 percent reported an overall funding decline. About half of allied health, medicine and engineering faculty reported overall research funding declines. Business professors appear to be least affected—only 16 percent reported that the research funding available to them shrank in 2025.
“The collective institutional research capacity of the United States is in free fall,” one respondent wrote in the comments section of the survey. “We are losing our leadership position in the world.”
In total, 663 survey respondents left comments. A few wrote about how they agreed with the divisive concepts or anti-DEI legislation that their state enacted, but most comments were bleak, the researchers said. Recent federal and state policies are “beyond perilous for the system of higher education and will have a far-reaching impact on the quality of life in the U.S. and the world,” another commenter wrote.
The researchers also asked faculty how much confidence they have in senior leaders’ willingness to advocate for academic freedom. Department chairs were considered the most reliable, the report shows. A quarter of respondents disagreed or somewhat disagreed that their president or chancellor advocates for their academic freedom to conduct research. About 37 percent of faculty said the same of their board of regents or governing board.
“I have no confidence, whatsoever, that my administration will support faculty if academic freedom is under assault,” one respondent wrote in a comment. “In fact, they have indicated the opposite. In the past few weeks, administrators have told faculty to not speak, teach or research certain things.”
