Social Scientists Work Being Involuntarily Classified

[Entropy]

Ok, back after my 18 hour lunch!

Seriously, though, EO lays out pretty clearly what can and cannot be classified. Without actually knowing what you're researching, it's hard for me to make a judgment on the potential that certain work might be classified, though I think the vast majority of social science work is probably safe. It will also depend on who you work for. If it's the government, then the chances of classification are higher simply because the government is what it is.

If someone does want to try to classify your work, there are procedures to fight that and ultimately they must identify what information is classified or makes the work classified and why. If it turns out their reasons are sound or your protest is unsuccessful, often you can amend the content without changing the character of what's being said to solve the problem, or the information can be placed in a classified annex (My wife, for example, did her master's thesis on an area of nuclear forensics and part of it was classified and put into an annex).

I think Rex has it right. The key is that the work has to be related to one of the areas the EO lists in my previous comment for it to be classified.