(LifeSiteNews) – Almost 90% of college students participating in a recent study said they fake agreement with left-wing views for academic and social success in one of the starkest examples yet of the bias of modern academia.
Writing in The Hill, clinical psychology researchers Kevin Waldman and Forest Romm of Northwestern University detail their findings from 1,452 confidential interviews with Northwestern and University of Michigan undergraduate students conducted over a two-year period, exploring the topic of “(w)hat happens to identity formation when belief is replaced by adherence to orthodoxy.”
“We asked: Have you ever pretended to hold more progressive views than you truly endorse to succeed socially or academically? An astounding 88 percent said yes,” they wrote. “These students were not cynical but adaptive. In a campus environment where grades, leadership, and peer belonging often hinge on fluency in performative morality, young adults quickly learn to rehearse what is safe.”
“Seventy-eight percent of students told us they self-censor on their beliefs surrounding gender identity; 72 percent on politics; 68 percent on family values,” they continued. “More than 80 percent said they had submitted classwork that misrepresented their views in order to align with professors (…) 77 percent said they disagreed with the idea that gender identity should override biological sex in such domains as sports, health care, or public data — but would never voice that disagreement aloud. Thirty-eight percent described themselves as ‘morally confused,’ uncertain whether honesty was still ethical if it meant exclusion.”
Notably, Walman and Romm found that the habit of hiding true views in order to conform was so deeply ingrained that many now do it outside of the academic sphere as well: “Seventy-three percent of students reported mistrust in conversations about these values with close friends. Nearly half said they routinely conceal beliefs in intimate relationships for fear of ideological fallout. This is not simply peer pressure — it is identity regulation at scale, and it is being institutionalized.”
American institutions of higher education have long been recognized as heavily dominated by left-wing bias and historical revisionism, conditioning students to reject religion, traditional morality, and free markets, and to view America as a uniquely malignant force in the world, a society systemically rigged against the poor and minority groups. These past two weeks, the extent of the bias has been illustrated by the alarming number of professors who have publicly mocked or celebrated the murder of populist influencer Charlie Kirk.
The toll of such an activist bent often extends well beyond politics. Last year, insiders from the University of California-Los Angeles’ (UCLA’s) prestigious David Geffen School of Medicine warned that the school’s diversity fixation had led to a crisis in which more than half of students in various cohorts admitted since 2020 fail standardized tests for basic medical knowledge of subjects ranging from emergency medicine and family medicine to internal medicine and pediatrics.
President Donald Trump has issued executive orders to deny federal funds to educational entities that indoctrinate students through Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (DEI) programs. Many states have introduced similar crackdowns on so-called “woke” indoctrination in education.
