Silencing Scholarship—How Institutional Review Boards Chill Free Speech

In this episode of Unwritten Law, NCLA’s Mark Chenoweth and John Vecchione are joined by NCLA’s Margot Cleveland to discuss a groundbreaking lawsuit against the University of Tennessee’s Institutional Review Board (IRB).The case centers on Idil Issak, a cultural anthropology PhD student barred from conducting dissertation research on domestic worker abuse in the UAE—research purely involving interviews and speech.Margot explains how IRBs, created to prevent unethical medical experiments, have morphed into unconstitutional gatekeepers for academic speech. They dive into why this case matters beyond Tennessee, highlighting the chilling effects these boards have nationwide on scholars who dare to investigate sensitive topics without official approval.