<p>When the visual artists Betty and George Woodman learned that the author was writing a paper about them, they used copyright protection to prevent her from publicly presenting or publishing material that included images of their work. Later, while preparing to share her work with a private audience, the author realized that not only had she excluded material of critical importance from her analysis, but was also unaware that she did so to avoid displeasing the Woodmans, whose permission she needed to reproduce copyrighted images. The author’s account of unconscious auto-censorship, which aimed to protect her prospects for publication at the expense of her scholarly integrity, illustrates our ability to covertly internalize and implement external constraints. The repercussions for academic freedom are discussed.</p>