American Academia 25 Years After 9/11

Findings from a survey of 470 Middle East scholars on national security, academic freedom, and intellectual rigor

Executive Summary:

To mark 25 years since the attacks of September 11, 2001, the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa, an independent scholarly organization, commissioned a survey to its members in an effort to understand the lessons American academia has learned in the last quarter of a century, and gauge its intellectual rigor and commitment to seriously and truthfully grappling with a region that continues to be central to American foreign policy and national security concerns. 

Between August 6 and August 28, 2026, 470 scholars completed the survey, answering eighteen scaled items and one labelled agreement item. The questions focused on three key areas: Academia's overall response to 9/11; The respondent's sense of ideological inflammation—or the lack thereof—in academia; and the overall state of intellectual and academic rigor.  

Key Findings: 

  • American Academia Has Become a Handmaiden for Radical Regimes, Organizations, and Ideologies Hostile to the United States

When asked to address the following statement— “I believe scholarly or public commentary from within academia since 9/11 has sometimes provided intellectual cover or legitimacy for ideologies, regimes, or groups hostile to the United States”—42 percent of respondents said they strongly agreed and 23 percent somewhat agreed. This means that 65 percent, or roughly two thirds, agreed with the statement, compared to only 13 percent of respondents who strongly rejected it.  

  • American Academia Has Failed to Teach Students the Basic Facts About 9/11, Raising Generations of Students Unable to Identify the Causes for or Perpetrators of the Attack

When asked to address the following statement—"I am confident that my current students have a firm understanding of the events leading up to 9/11, and can correctly identify both the core reasons for the attack and the main culprits”—42 percent of respondents said they strongly disagreed, and 24 percent somewhat disagreed, meaning that 66 percent, or two thirds, felt strongly that their students could not correctly identify the reasons behind the attack or its perpetrators. Even more disturbingly, a mere four percent of respondents expressed complete confidence in their students’ knowledge of the causes leading up to 9/11 or their ability to grasp the event’s key facts. 

  • American Academia is Worse Equipped Today Than it Was 25 Years Ago to Pursue Truth-Seeking as its Central Mission

When asked to address the following statement— “Overall, I believe American academia is better or worse equipped today than it was 25 years ago to pursue truth-seeking as its central mission”—41 percent of respondents said academia was much worse equipped and 30 percent said it was somewhat worse equipped, which means that 71 percent, or nearly three quarters, believe academia is far worst equipped today to handle the considerable intellectual and scholarly challenges it faces than it was on the morning of the 9/11 attacks. 

 A graph with red bars AI-generated content may be incorrect.

  • Younger Academics Report Greater Degrees of Ideologically-Based Constraints 

While the aforementioned responses featured no significant divergence when it came to the respondent’s tenure in academia, when asked about their personal experiences, young and veteran scholars vastly differed, with younger academics reporting far greater degrees of ideologically-based constraints. As the graph below clearly shows, Respondents with under ten years in academia are significantly more likely than those with forty or more to report recent self-censorship (3.25 vs 2.66, p = .007) and a departmental orthodoxy (3.51 vs 2.87, p = .017), and significantly less likely to believe decisions rest on merit (2.88 vs 3.37, p = .0008).

A graph of different colored lines AI-generated content may be incorrect.

Conclusions:

As these troubling findings clearly show, at least when it comes to Middle East scholarship, American academia had failed to pursue its commitment to the free and unfettered exchange of ideas, becoming instead a hotbed for ideologies detrimental to U.S. national security and raising generations of students more concerned with these ideologies than with a broader and deeper understanding of facts and contexts. Furthermore, this trend seems to only escalate, with younger professors reporting greater levels of constraints, self-imposed or otherwise, designed to safeguard prevalent orthodoxies and curtail academic freedom. The survey, of course, polled only Middle East studies scholars and not professors at large. And yet, in the 25 years since 9/11, we desperately needed scholars to help us make sense of the Middle East and guide us towards policies that best serve America’s interests and national security concerns. Instead, we were met with zealotry that discarded facts and observable reality in favor of anti-American sentiments and commitments.

Read the New York Post article on the survey.