Self-censorship is ruining academia as university professors refrain from speaking freely out of fear, a University of Alabama earth science professor told Fox News on Monday.

Free inquiry, the pursuit of knowledge, challenging the status quo, and asking uncomfortable questions are at the core of the university experience and reflect the principles higher education was built on, Dr. Matthew Wielicki declared in the interview.

“We’re literally moving away from the foundations of academia,” Wielicki said. “If professors have any hesitancy in their speech, if students are hesitant to ask questions, if there is a decrease in dialogue because of a fear of retribution — that’s the fundamental principles that universities were founded on.”

Wielicki announced his resignation from the University of Alabama in January over what he has found to be oppressive diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) regulations.

Over the last decade or so, but especially the last few years, he said, “the obsession with universities and grant-funding institutions on immutable characteristics of faculty and students and the push for equity in science above all else has dramatically changed the profession of an academic professor.”

Moreover, he said, the rise of “illiberalism in the name of DEI is the antithesis of the principles that universities were founded on.”

Wielicki said that he has “definitely experienced” an academic environment where professors and students are afraid to speak their minds since their thoughts and opinions cans be used against them if they don’t conform to the politically correct consensus.

The earth science professor, who was born in Poland, has been very critical of climate change alarmism, insisting on a fact-based rather than fear-based approach to climate science.

“I think when I started speaking out, it came very clear to me that saying what I said was very taboo,” Wielicki told Fox News. “People called me a racist straight away when I didn’t actually talk much about race at all.”

“I think everybody walks on eggshells,” Wielicki said.