National Free Speech News & Commentary

Jonathan Turley
Jonathan Turley's Blog

Excerpt: Eighty years ago, the U.S. government launched a war bond campaign featuring a painting by artist Norman Rockwell in the struggle against the authoritarian threat from Europe. The picture they chose was Rockwell’s Freedom of Speech depicting a man rising to speak his mind at a local council meeting in Vermont. The image rallied the nation around what Louis Brandeis called our “indispensable right.”

Abigail Anthony
National Review

Excerpt: Civil disorder is rife in the United Kingdom. Axel Muganwa Rudakubana, a 17-year-old born in the United Kingdom to Christian immigrants from Rwanda, killed three young girls and injured others in a knife attack at a dance class on July 29. However, his name was initially undisclosed to the public because he was under 18, which led to speculation that he was a Muslim immigrant or an asylum-seeker. This speculation sparked violent riots against immigration and similarly intense counter-protests nationwide. Now, over 1,000 people have been arrested in relation to the riots, with charges ranging from violent disorder to other, speech-related offenses.

Jonathan Turley
Jonathan Turley's Blog

Excerpt: For years, many of us have been writing about the decline in viewpoint diversity and the rise of an academic orthodoxy in higher education. It is one of the focuses of my new book, The Indispensable Right. Despite the calls for greater tolerance, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) just elected a new president who has been criticized for being overtly hostile to conservative viewpoints and candidates.

Josh Moody
Inside Higher Ed

Excerpt: When Columbia University President Minouche Shafik resigned abruptly on Wednesday, she became the third campus leader since December to step down amid Congressional pressure over how they handled sprawling student protests tied to the war between Israel and Hamas.

David French
New York Times

Excerpt: “In the year 2024, in the United States of America, in the State of California, in the City of Los Angeles, Jewish students were excluded from portions of the U.C.L.A. campus because they refused to denounce their faith.” Those are the first words of an angry court opinion by Mark Scarsi, a Federal District Court judge in California.

Jerry A. Coyne
Why Evolution Is True

Excerpt: Most rational people, I believe, are opposed to academic boycotts: those political movements that try to prohibit the exchange of scholars or academic information with countries deemed unacceptable on ideological grounds. These boycotts not only stem the free flow of information among countries that is the lifeblood of academia—especially of science—but also punish those who can contribute to this knowledge even though those people rarely have any influence with their government. Indeed, as in the case of Israel (surely the reason for the dropping of the boycott prohibition), many scholars are opposed to the government’s policies.

Inside Higher Ed reports on the ending of boycotts by the influential organization the American Association of University Professors, an organization that should know better.