The University of Massachusetts Boston last crafted its mission statement in 2010. It was what one might expect of a university, the usual research and education stuff, “inquiry, creativity and discovery,” with the requisite nod to diversity, because it is, after all, a university.

Its first sentence identifies UMass Boston as “a public research university with a dynamic culture of teaching and learning, and a special commitment to urban and global engagement.” It celebrates the school’s “vibrant, multi-cultural educational environment” and “broadly diverse campus community.” And it commits UMass Boston to “creating new knowledge while serving the public good of our city, our commonwealth, our nation, and our world.”

Of course it’s about serving the public good. What kind of university would serve the public bad?

More than 50 faculty members at the University of Massachusetts Boston are openly criticizing a campaign to bind their institution into an ideology of racial and social engineering far removed from the time-honored role of higher education.

The idea that any faculty member, even from STEM, would challenge such a paradigm shift is shocking. What exactly caused them to write a letter?

The proposed new mission and vision statements mention “research” and “teaching” only in passing. They begin instead by proclaiming that UMass Boston must become “an anti-racist and health-promoting institution” that supports “diverse forms of knowledge production” and is dedicated to education “rooted in equity, environmental sustainability, [and] social and racial justice.” They reiterate that the university’s purpose is to be “anti-racist” and to promote “climate, environmental, and racial justice.”

But let’s be real. It’s a Mission Statement. It’s not as if anybody reads it, cares what it says, or reflects what a university actually does, right? It’s not as if a university is going to stop holding classes so students can pay tuition to spend four years engaged in struggle sessions before earning their electrical engineering degree. At most, it sends a message to students and faculty about where the school stands, and who could argue with that?

I went to college to learn from my professors and peers. I welcomed an environment that champions intellectual diversity and rigorous disagreement. Instead, my college experience has been defined by strict ideological conformity. Students of all political persuasions hold back — in class discussions, in friendly conversations, on social media — from saying what we really think. Even as a liberal who has attended abortion rights protests and written about standing up to racism, I sometimes feel afraid to fully speak my mind.

Is this real or just the experience of one student whose perception might be particularly sensitive?

In the classroom, backlash for unpopular opinions is so commonplace that many students have stopped voicing them, sometimes fearing lower grades if they don’t censor themselves. According to a 2021 survey administered by College Pulse of over 37,000 students at 159 colleges, 80 percent of students self-censor at least some of the time. Forty-eight percent of undergraduate students described themselves as “somewhat uncomfortable” or “very uncomfortable” with expressing their views on a controversial topic during classroom discussions. At U.V.A., 57 percent of those surveyed feel that way.

What might not make it into such surveys is that the issue of self-censorship only arises from those who have some fear of being taken to task for questioning the orthodoxy. Those who either adhere to the orthodoxy, or see their role as bolstering it, they aren’t the ones who suffer self-censorship, but enforce it.

And while the students keep their yaps shut lest they become social pariahs on campus, the profs are coming to the realization that they are not above the fray.

Professors have noticed a shift in their classrooms. Brad Wilcox, a U.V.A. sociology professor, told me that he believes that two factors have caused self-censorship’s pervasiveness. “First, students are afraid of being called out on social media by their peers,” he said. “Second, the dominant messages students hear from faculty, administrators and staff are progressive ones. So they feel an implicit pressure to conform to those messages in classroom and campus conversations and debates.”

Even progressive students aren’t immune from fear that the wrong view escapes from their minds.

This anxiety affects not just conservatives. I spoke with Abby Sacks, a progressive fourth-year student. She said she experienced a “pile-on” during a class discussion about sexism in media. She disagreed with her professor, who she said called “Captain Marvel” a feminist film. Ms. Sacks commented that she felt the film emphasized the title character’s physical strength instead of her internal conflict and emotions. She said this seemed to frustrate her professor.

Her classmates noticed. “It was just a succession of people, one after each other, each vehemently disagreeing with me,” she told me.

Having no knowledge of Captain Marvel, I demur on substance, as well as the fact that this happened in a course about sexism in media, which no doubt will prove very useful to an electrical engineer, but it suggests that what the 50 profs rose to challenge at UMass, against their self-interest in self-censorship, is that the elevation of “racial and social engineering” as the primary purpose of a university, rather than electrical engineering, has made it dangerous for students, even those who never would have believed their view wasn’t the correct one, to speak, discuss, debate and think.

And the profs are just as much at risk as their students are when the mission isn’t research and education, but social justice. Of course, if class discussion can’t withstand students questioning and challenging progressive orthodoxy, perhaps UMass got the mission right and it’s time to shut down their science and engineering departments as superfluous to the mission.