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Facts & Figures

Our review of 185 Civility Industry nonprofits and initiatives uncovered…

70+

new campus centers and initiatives tied to pluralism, civil discourse, and character education since 2023 [1]

>$200M

in annual spending on civic thought centers, dialogue programs, and viewpoint diversity efforts [2]

There is little evidence of the “campus culture crisis” that Civility Providers claim to address—and no evidence that their alleged “solutions” are effective:

Just 2%

of college students—including just 3% of Republicans—say they feel they don’t belong on their campus due to their political views [3]

3 months

is how long it takes for the supposed benefits of so-called depolarization programs to “completely evaporate” [4]

These programs aren’t needed and they don’t work—so what are the true motives driving their growth?

To find out, we conducted a first-of-its-kind analysis of roughly 400 foundations that made grants to Civility Industry programs. The results are alarming:

20 out of 23

of the biggest funders in the pluralism, civic thought, and "bridge-building" space also make large grants to conservative or “pro-Israel” groups [5]

97%

of dollars from those top-23 Civility Industry funders come from the 20 foundations with major investments in conservative or “pro-Israel” organizations [6] [7]

These funders are driven by an anti-democratic agenda. Our investigation of 100+ campuses that host Civility Industry programs reveals their true goals:

3 out of 5

schools in our sample had adopted institutional neutrality and/or tightened their campus protest policies since 2023 [8]

Compared to the national average, schools in our sample were more likely to have adopted institutional neutrality by a magnitude of

5x

[9]

nearly 70%

of schools that launched Civility Industry centers or programs after 2023 have been accused of unfairly suppressing pro-Palestine activism [10]

Report and Source Data

EXPLORE THE DATA
READ THE REPORT

Recommended Reading & Podcasts

Campus-Based Civic Thought Centers

Civil Discourse and Campus Dialogue Programs

Institutional Neutrality and the Suppression of Dissent

Polarization and Bridge-Building

The Fake “Campus Free Speech Crisis”

Reactionary Centrism

Viewpoint Diversity and Pluralism

Weaponized Accusations of “Antisemitism”


Figure drawn from the “Providers” tab of the UNCIVIL source data. Screened from a total list of 185 Providers, retrieved during a period from January 29, 2026 to April 29, 2026. Filtering on Columns B and D for ("Type" and "Year Founded") reveals that 112 university initiatives/centers were founded since 2015 and 75 of those have been founded since 2023.


1.

2.

Ibid. Queried from a total list of 185 Providers. Tallying the values in Column F yields ~$262.4M/year. This includes a significant number of estimates in lieu of concrete figures, given that centers and initiatives operating within larger entities do not file discrete budget documents with the IRS. However, our heuristic for estimating budgets based on staff/FTEs (see Column G) is highly conservative ($120k per person) and the actual number is almost certainly higher than $262.4M.

3.

Gallup and Lumina Foundation. The College Reality Check: What Students Experience vs. What America Believes. Washington, DC: Gallup, 2026.

4.

Santoro, Erik, et al. “The promise and pitfalls of cross-partisan conversations for reducing affective polarization: Evidence from randomized field experiments.” Science Advances 8, no. 25 (2022). See also Holliday, Derek E., et al. “Why depolarization is hard: Evaluating attempts to decrease partisan animosity in America.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 122, no. 39 (2025) and Ralph, Allison. “Are bridging programs effective?” Democracy Notes Perspectives, October 1, 2024.

5.

Percentage calculated from multiple tabs within the UNCIVIL source data. Details are provided in our Funder Analysis Report.

6.

Ibid. Details are provided in our Funder Analysis Report.

7.

Refer to our Funder Analysis Report for criteria used to identify “conservative” and “‘pro-Israel’” organizations. Broadly speaking, the “‘pro-Israel’” label in our data denotes organizations that oppose the BDS movement and similar forms of political dissent as part of their commitment to an ethno-nationalist (i.e., Zionist) state—including those that also advocate for a separate-but-equal Palestinian state. We have added quotation marks around this label for the same reason that we would do so in the case of the “pro-America” views of anti-immigrant groups in the U.S. For additional details on nomenclature, refer to pp. 5-6 of our Funder Analysis Report.

8.

Percentage calculated from (1) values in Columns B and E in the “Higher Ed Institutions” tab of the UNCIVIL source data. Column B draws from Heterodox Academy’s Institutional Neutrality policy tracker (queried on April 29, 2026); and Column E is drawn from an overall sample set of all institutions that modified their protest policies since October 2023 (coded “Yes” in Column D). Modifications are coded as “Tightened” if source documentation (e.g., official policy updates, university statements, or credible reporting) show evidence of one or more of the following: (i) new or expanded time, place, and manner restrictions; (ii) introduction of permit or advance approval requirements; (iii) prohibitions on specific protest activities (e.g., encampments, overnight presence, use of structures, masking, amplified sound); (iv) increased enforcement authority or disciplinary penalties; (v) explicit limitations on previously permitted forms of protest. A school's protest policies are coded as "Not tightened” if sources indicate that the policy modifications were limited to: (i) clarifications of existing rules; (ii) administrative or procedural updates; (iii) neutral restatements without new restrictions. Some institutions were classified as “Mixed” where both more restrictive and more permissive elements were introduced; these Mixed cases were not counted in the “Tightened” category. (See Columns F and G for rationale and sources.)

9.

Ratio calculated based on 2024 NCES/IPEDS data, which identifies 2,691 four-year postsecondary institutions in the U.S. As of April 29, 2026, Heterodox Academy's policy tracker of schools that have adopted Institutional Neutrality lists 164 colleges and universities, of which 157 have done so since 2023. That means approximately 5.8% of all U.S. four-year institutions have adopted Institutional Neutrality since 2023. By contrast, 30.4% of schools in our dataset (31 out of 102) have adopted Institutional Neutrality since 2023. Therefore, schools in our dataset are more than 5 times more likely to have adopted Institutional Neutrality since 2023 compared to the average U.S. four-year college or university.

10.

Percentage calculated by applying the criteria of (1) college/university-based Providers and (2) founded/established post-2023, which yields a sample set of 69 higher ed institutions. Of those institutions, 47 have faced credible, well-sourced accusations leveled against them of unfair treatment toward pro-Palestine activists and advocates. (For additional detail, refer to Columns H and I of the “Higher Ed Institutions” tab of the UNCIVIL source data (retrieved during the screening period - January 29, 2026 to April 29, 2026).