Findings Overall
Our interviews with university officials suggest that on a widespread basis, universities have experienced increased problems with content restrictions over the past five years. Our findings suggest that several factors may be at work:

• Increasing government custom and culture of controlling the flow of even non-classified information.
  
• Basic misinterpretation of authorizing legislation, misconstruing limits on disclosure related to privacy or security with authority to control content flow.
  
• Misapplication of specific FAR provisions.
  
• Lack of awareness of changes and amendments to FAR that have explicitly recognized the right of universities to engage in free speech in government funded research.
  
• Use of “sensitive but unclassified” (“SBU”) clauses in connection with unclassified data, as a means to justify heightened scrutiny and review of research.