Performative virtue-signaling has become a threat to higher ed:
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. These students were not cynical, but adaptive. In a campus environment where grades, leadership, and peer belonging often hinge on fluency in performative morality, young adults quickly learn to rehearse what is safe. The result is not conviction but compliance….
Authenticity, once considered a psychological good, has become a social liability. And this fragmentation doesn’t end at the classroom door. Seventy-three percent of students reported mistrust in conversations about these values with close friends. Nearly half said they routinely conceal beliefs in intimate relationships for fear of ideological fallout. This is not simply peer pressure — it is identity regulation at scale, and it is being institutionalized.
Universities often justify these dynamics in the name of inclusion. But inclusion that demands dishonesty is not ensuring psychological safety — it is sanctioning self-abandonment. In attempting to engineer moral unity, higher education has mistaken consensus for growth and compliance for care.