Why are U.S. academics, even after tenure and promotion, so timid in their exercise of academic freedom? Part of the problem is institutional academics are subject to a long probationary period under tight collegial control but part of the problem is ideological. A hybrid of seventeenth-century British and nineteenth-century German ideals, U.S. academia and the nation more generally remains ambivalent toward the value of academic freedom, ultimately inhibiting an unequivocal endorsement.