Government Word List Chills Research, Paper Finds

A 2025 U.S. government list of flagged words acted as a natural experiment on academic freedom. A new working paper tracked how economists at federally funded universities responded. The result was a sharp drop in the use of terms related to race and the environment, the paper's authors wrote.

The findings intersect with equity markets through the research ecosystem. If scholars in climate economics or Enterprise AI Will Be Defined By Trust self-censor, the public data sets that underpin sector analysis lose fidelity. The paper found the strongest effects in content on gender and race, two areas where large-cap tech companies, including Apple, face investor scrutiny.

The authors compared U.S. scholars with colleagues at UK institutions and those at U.S. universities with less federal funding. The drop was concentrated in the U.S. federal funding group. Top-10 economics departments saw larger shifts. Women and minority authors showed stronger responses, the paper said.

The risk recedes if the issuing agency formally disavows the list as a compliance metric, or if a court challenge succeeds. The risk escalates if the list expands to other agencies or disciplines. The paper frames its results as "Science under threat." The authors also note the mechanism looks like "removing incentives for pandering."

Our findings are consistent with the idea that scholars respond strongly to political pressure, the authors wrote. The next concrete marker is the 2026 grant cycle. If funding agencies show no change in approval rates for research using the flagged language, the chill may recede. If approvals drop, the pressure is structural.