How the G.O.P. Went From Championing Campus Free Speech to Fighting It

March 20, 2025 1 min read

Jeremy W. Peters
New York Times

Excerpt: As conservatives fought against cancel culture on college campuses, they developed a particular fondness for the First Amendment. It was un-American, they argued, to punish someone for exercising their right to speak freely.

Today, however, many of those same conservatives, now in power in state and federal government, are behind a growing crackdown on political expression at universities, in ways that try to sidestep the Constitution’s free-speech guarantees.

Click here for link to full article


Leave a comment


Also in National Free Speech News & Commentary

‘We Lost Our Mission’: Three University Leaders on the Future of Higher Ed

November 18, 2025 1 min read

Ariel Kaminer, Sian Beilock, Jennifer L. Mnookin and Michael S. Roth
New York Times

Excerpt: It’s an eventful moment in American higher education: The Trump administration is cracking down, artificial intelligence is ramping up, varsity athletes are getting paid and a college education is losing its status as the presumptive choice of ambitious high school seniors. 

 To tell us what’s happening now and what might be coming around the corner, three university leaders — Sian Beilock, the president of Dartmouth; Michael Roth, the president of Wesleyan; and Jennifer Mnookin, the chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison — spoke with Ariel Kaminer, an editor at Times Opinion.

Read More
McMahon Breaks Up More of the Education Department

November 18, 2025 1 min read

Jessica Blake
Inside Higher Ed

Excerpt: The Education Department is planning to move TRIO and numerous other higher education programs to the Labor Department as part of a broader effort to dismantle the agency and “streamline its bureaucracy.”

Instead of moving whole offices, the department detailed a plan Tuesday to transfer certain programs and responsibilities to other agencies. All in all, the department signed six agreements with four agencies, relocating a wide swath of programs.

Read More
Judge indefinitely bars Trump from fining UC over alleged discrimination

November 15, 2025 1 min read

Associated Press/NPR

Excerpt: The Trump administration cannot fine the University of California or summarily cut the school system's federal funding over claims it allows antisemitism or other forms of discrimination, a federal judge ruled late Friday in a sharply worded decision.

Read More