There’s a “quiet psychological crisis, driven by the demands of ideological conformity” on college campuses today, say two psychology researchers. As a result, 88 percent of students at the University of Michigan and Northwestern University pretend to be more politically progressive than they actually are.
Even in conversations with close friends, around half of the students hide their beliefs or doubts due to “fear of ideological fallout,” note psychology researchers Forest Romm and Kevin Waldman. “You’re not wrong—everyone has been lying about what they really think,” Romm lamented.
“Between 2023 and 2025, we conducted 1,452 confidential interviews with undergraduates at Northwestern University and the University of Michigan. We were not studying politics — we were studying development. Our question was clinical, not political:… 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.”
This was particularly true on the politically-charged issue of gender identity. The survey found that students voiced more progressive views in public and more doubts about that position in private:
“In public, students echoed expected progressive narratives. In private, however, their views were more complex. Eighty-seven percent identified as exclusively heterosexual and supported a binary model of gender. Nine percent expressed partial openness to gender fluidity. Just seven percent embraced the idea of gender as a broad spectrum, and most of these belonged to activist circles. Perhaps most telling: 77 percent said they disagreed with the idea that gender identity should override biological sex in such domains as sports, healthcare, 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,” note Romm and Waldman, who are researchers at Northwestern University.
“This is not simply peer pressure — it is identity regulation at scale, and it is being institutionalized,” said Romm and Waldman in a column in The Hill newspaper. “Universities often justify these dynamics in the name of inclusion. But inclusion that demands dishonesty is not ensuring psychological safety — it is sanctioning self-abandonment.”
The schools they surveyed are considered leading schools. Northwestern University is ranked the sixth best university by U.S. News and World Report. The University of Michigan is ranked #21 among American universities by U.S. News and World Report.
Many college courses promote progressive ideology or extreme world views. Colleges offer courses such as “Queer Marxism” and “How To Be A Bitch.”
Occidental College offers the course “Black Queer Thought.” The course critiques “the demands of heteronormativity, white supremacy, patriarchy and capitalism.”
Divinity schools have proclaimed that Jesus was “queer,” and have attacked marriage, capitalism, and monogamy.
The University of California at Berkeley hosted a taxpayer-funded lecture on the “Queering of Agriculture.”
