The growing federal emphasis on combating sexual harassment on campus, along with universities’ broadening definitions of inappropriate sexual behavior, has had a chilling effect on academic freedom and speech, especially on female professors in areas like gender studies, a report released Thursday by the American Association of University Professors said.

The report says that in the last few years, the government has been regulating not just sexual conduct but also sexual speech, and that the emphasis on complying with federal law has led to some professors being investigated by universities for making statements that some students find offensive but that the report says should be protected. A heightened focus on speech, the report said, has led to episodes like one in which students demanded trigger warnings before being exposed to graphic lesbian sex in “Fun Home,” the memoir by the cartoonist Alison Bechdel.

“We need to protect academic speech and the freedom that goes with academic speech, as well as due process,” Risa L. Lieberwitz, general counsel of the association and chairwoman of the subcommittee that drafted the report, said in an interview Wednesday. “Universities are acting in a way that is overly precipitous as well as applying overly broad definitions of sexual harassment because they are afraid of scrutiny.”

The 55-page report is based on research conducted by members of committees on academic freedom and tenure and on women in academia. The report says the association does not mean to underestimate the gravity of sexual harassment complaints, but calls for the government to draw a sharper line between behavior and speech and to commit to protecting academic freedom.