Northwestern University clinical and applied psychology researchers Forest Romm and Kevin Waldman recently conducted a study of 1,452 students at Northwestern and the University of Michigan. What they found was astonishing.

According to Romm and Waldman, “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.” In other words, the overwhelming majority of college students felt like they had to lie in order to keep friends and pass their classes.

That’s not all.

“This split between outer presentation and inner conviction not only fragments identity but arrests its development,” Romm and Waldman observe. “This dissonance shows up everywhere. Seventy-eight percent of students told us they self-censor on their beliefs surrounding gender identity; 72 percent on politics; 68 percent on family values. More than 80 percent said they had submitted classwork that misrepresented their views in order to align with professors. For many, this has become second nature — an instinct for academic and professional self-preservation.”

A very few students are actually diehard ideological leftists — at least according to the findings of Romm and Waldman — yet they control the social mores of college life. Why? Well, the smallest, most radical group of students is backed by the professors, most of whom lean left. According to Sarah Lawrence College politics professor Samuel J. Abrams, “Fifty percent of professors identify as liberal, 17 percent as moderate, and 26 percent as conservative.” However, other research estimates liberal professors comprise more like 60%-70%.

Discrimination and worldview bias dictate the way students are taught. Our future medical professionals are being compelled to affirm the delusion of gender pathology. Future psychologists are being coerced to put their judgment and guidance on the back burner and elevate their patients’ immorality and misconceptions.

Our young adult students don’t have the luxury of standing up to their professors or their friends on ideological grounds. Too much is at stake socially, academically, and financially. This is not a model for long-term success because it doesn’t provide what higher education promised — teaching students how to think.

Intellectual honesty is being suppressed for the purpose of ideological conformity. To a generation like Gen Z, this defies one of its most sacred values: authenticity. The Left forces people to declare views they don’t actually believe in order to get by. It’s oppressive and yet another reason more young people are leaning conservative.

Homogeneity of thought is where intellectual stagnation begins. No wonder our universities are wallowing in the quagmire.