The Florida Institute on Academic Freedom is an independent, nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization studying academic freedom, discourse climate, self-censorship, and political and institutional pressures in Florida higher education.
 

The Institute was founded after observations at Florida State University and conversations with faculty raised questions about self-censorship, classroom discourse, and the effects of political and institutional pressures on academic life.
 

Those experiences generated research questions, not conclusions. The Institute was established to investigate whether similar patterns exist across Florida higher education, how common they are, what forms they take, and what factors may explain them.
 

Origins

The Institute grew out of founder Frank Faiola’s experience studying at universities in different states and institutional environments.
 

After transferring to Florida State University, he began noticing differences in how some political subjects were approached in the classroom. Subsequent conversations with faculty included accounts of self-censorship, changes in classroom discussion, and concerns about potential professional or institutional consequences.
 

These observations and conversations raised broader questions about whether similar experiences occur elsewhere in Florida higher education and what factors might account for them. The Institute was created to investigate those questions systematically.
 

From Observation to Research

A central distinction in the Institute’s work is the difference between observations that generate research questions and evidence capable of supporting broader conclusions.
 

The experiences that contributed to the Institute’s creation are not treated as representative of Florida higher education. The Institute’s research is designed to determine whether broader patterns exist and, where they do, to examine their prevalence, characteristics, and potential explanations.
 

This includes examining differences across institutions, disciplines, academic positions, political orientations, and other relevant factors, as well as distinguishing developments specific to Florida from broader changes occurring throughout American higher education.

Founder







 

His observations at Florida State University and subsequent conversations with faculty led him to examine questions of academic self-censorship and changing classroom discourse more closely. He later wrote about those experiences in the Tallahassee Democrat in “Fear Among the Faculty: How Academic Freedom Dies at FSU.”
 

The questions raised by those experiences contributed to his decision to establish the Institute as a research organization capable of investigating them systematically and beyond a single institution.

Faiola also writes independently about democratic institutions, authoritarianism, political accountability, and related political issues.
 

Building the Research Program

The Institute is continuing to build its research capacity.
 

Its Advisory Board is composed of scholars and experts from relevant academic and professional fields who provide guidance on research design, methodology, framing, interpretation, and institutional development.
 

View the Advisory Board.
 

The Institute is also assembling a broader research team of Research Fellows and Research Associates who can contribute to research development, literature review, data collection and analysis, methodological design, and related projects.
 

Learn about Research Fellows.

Learn about Research Associates.
 

The Florida Institute on Academic Freedom, Inc. is a Florida nonprofit organization.