When Collegiality Becomes Censorship

A Guest Post by Luc Lelièvre

Photo by Miguel Henriques on Unsplash

For most of my academic life, I believed that collegiality—a shared respect among scholars for one another’s ideas—was a safeguard against institutional repression. The idea was romantic: universities as communities of thinkers, animated by curiosity and disagreement. However, as I progressed through Université Laval’s doctoral program, I learned that collegiality can quietly become a mechanism of censorship—a velvet hammer for suppressing intellectual dissent.

This essay explores how informal norms, bureaucratic gatekeeping, and ambient ideology converge to silence contrarian thought in academia. Drawing from my exclusion at Université Laval, I argue that the language of professionalism is increasingly deployed to enforce conformity rather than to nurture dialogue. As I will show, this process often happens without overt threats—more Kafka than Kremlin. Thinkers like Hannah Arendt, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Erich Fromm help frame this experience not as an isolated misfortune but as symptomatic of a larger crisis in intellectual life.

The Mask of Collegiality

My dissertation proposal examined how Quebec’s COVID-19 lockdowns could be analyzed through Hannah Arendt’s theory of emergency powers and authoritarian drift. The project was timely, methodologically sound, and rooted in respected theoretical traditions. Still, my supervisor discouraged the topic from the outset, stating that it would be “unacceptable” within the departmental ethos. No clear reasons were provided—only vague warnings and innuendo.

This is the first mechanism of censorship: collegial discouragement. Ideas are not explicitly banned, but they are labeled as “inappropriate,” “unproductive,” or “misaligned” with departmental values. In this setting, collegiality does not mean mutual respect—it means mutual silence, a shared pact to avoid uncomfortable ideas. To dissent is to violate the unwritten code of academic decorum.

My research was not rejected on its merits. Instead, it was smothered by procedural opacity: grading inconsistencies, refusal to define evaluative criteria, and dismissals cloaked in bureaucratic language. The university’s ombudsman refused to investigate, claiming the issue was “beyond their purview.” I was not failed for poor scholarship—I was failed for pursuing a question that made people uncomfortable.

Bureaucracy as Suppression

Hannah Arendt warned that totalitarianism rarely announces itself with a bang. In The Origins of Totalitarianism, she writes that bureaucratic neutrality can become a tool for ideological enforcement. By appearing impartial, institutions avoid scrutiny, even as they quietly excise dissenting voices.

Université Laval’s doctoral system illustrates this danger. Supervisors act as gatekeepers, and the absence of transparent criteria means unpopular ideas can be killed without consequence. A committee may deem a proposal “unsuitable,” but the reason is rarely methodological. It is ideological.

This model is not new. Franz Kafka dramatized its effects in The Trial, where characters are accused but never told why. Procedures replace reason, and judgment is arbitrary. That is how academic censorship operates in polite society—through ritual, delay, and obfuscation.

Academic Freedom, or Its Illusion?

The term “academic freedom” is often paraded by institutions eager to burnish their reputations. Nevertheless, freedom divorced from protection is meaningless. In practice, dissenting scholars are not expelled—they are isolated, discouraged, and quietly removed from the intellectual community.

Eric Rasmusen’s experience at Indiana University offers a mirror. After posting controversial views on gender, he was not fired but publicly shamed by the administration. Protests followed, and his home was vandalized. Rasmusen eventually retired under pressure, not due to incompetence but because the university no longer considered him “collegial.”

In both our cases, there was no trial—only a verdict. Moreover, both verdicts were based not on intellectual misconduct but on perceived ideological threat.

Bonhoeffer’s Warning

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote from a prison cell in Nazi Germany about the dangers of “stupidity.” For him, stupidity was not a lack of intelligence, but a moral failure—the refusal to think critically under social pressure. “Stupidity is more dangerous than malice,” he wrote, “for it is neither challenged nor perceived.”

This insight is vital. Academic censorship is not always driven by malicious intent. It is often the product of well-meaning people choosing comfort over clarity, collegiality over courage. In this setting, Bonhoeffer’s “stupidity” manifests as institutional conformity—a fear of asking inconvenient questions.

Collegiality, then, becomes a moral anesthetic. It dulls our impulse to question and rewards our instinct to comply.

Pandemic Doxa and the Collapse of Debate

The COVID-19 crisis accelerated these trends. Laurent Mucchielli’s analysis of France’s pandemic response describes a “Covid doxa”—a monopolized narrative enforced through social and professional penalties. Scholars who questioned lockdowns or vaccine policies faced funding cuts, public ridicule, and institutional threats.

In my case, the mere act of proposing pandemic-related critique triggered administrative resistance. Ethics committees blocked sensitive topics, warning researchers about “public perception.” Funding agencies withdrew support. Suddenly, entire fields became off-limits—not by law, but by taboo.

The erosion of debate around COVID-19 reveals a new phase of academic censorship: one driven less by authoritarian law than by ambient ideology. Furthermore, it is no less dangerous for being subtle.

Silence as Strategy

Czesław Miłosz described “Ketman”—the art of outward conformity paired with internal dissent—in The Captive Mind. Under oppressive systems, intellectuals often survive by pretending to believe what they do not. Today, that dynamic is evident in academia. Scholars know which topics to avoid, which opinions to feign, and which silences to maintain.

I have met brilliant doctoral students who self-censor without even realizing it. They tailor their research to institutional norms, not curiosity. They write what is “publishable,” not what is true. Furthermore, they do this not out of cowardice, but as a survival mechanism.

This is collegiality as censorship—where silence is rewarded and speech punished.

Structural Violence and Symbolic Death

Erich Fromm argued that institutions respond to critique with destructiveness rather than introspection. Faced with dissonance between self-image and external challenge, they lash out—not physically, but symbolically.

My exclusion from Université Laval was not just academic. It was existential. It said, “Your questions threaten us.” Your thinking is too unruly. The institution could not metabolize dissent, so it expelled the dissenter.

This is symbolic violence—the erasure of uncomfortable thought, the punishment of fidelity to critical inquiry. It is a quiet death sentence for ideas that do not serve the system.

Toward an Ethic of Resistance

So how do we resist?

Bonhoeffer’s answer was moral courage—a willingness to think critically even when doing so risks reputation or career. He saw thought not as a luxury but as a duty. Similarly, Arendt believed that truth-telling in dark times is not heroic—it is necessary.

Universities must rethink what academic freedom actually means. It is not enough to declare it. They must protect dissent in practice—through transparent procedures, independent review bodies, and intellectual pluralism. Without these safeguards, collegiality will continue to serve as a tool for exclusion.

Concluding Reflections

The suppression I experienced was not an institutional misunderstanding. It was a symptom of an era in which lucidity is unwelcome and conscience is treated as instability. My exclusion from Université Laval reflected a broader transformation: from university as a space of thought to university as a space of compliance.

Max Weber called modern bureaucracy an “iron cage”—a system that imprisons individuals in rationalized procedures, extinguishing meaningful action. Today’s universities are built from that steel. The spirit of Verstehen is gone; what remains is managerial order. One might hear Kafka’s protagonist echoing down the corridors: bewildered by rules, accused without hearing, judged without clarity.

I stood before such a tribunal—not because I failed the demands of knowledge, but because I met them too faithfully.

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Luc Lelièvre is a Quebec-based social scientist and independent essayist whose work interrogates institutional conformity, censorship, and the ethics of intellectual dissent. He earned a Master’s degree from Université Laval in 1999 and pursued doctoral research in urban geography until 2006. Though he did not complete the degree, his academic journey continues to inform his critical writings on freedom, power, and the hidden architecture of professional speech norms. Now retired, he devotes his time to reading, reflection, and writing sharp, personal essays and reviews that challenge prevailing orthodoxies.