National Free Speech News & Commentary

Scott Yenor and Anna Miller
Wall Street Journal

Excerpt: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s antiwoke education agenda has drawn national attention, but equally important and far less noticed is how Mr. DeSantis advanced new educational standards. A pedagogical revolution is afoot in the Sunshine State, which could serve as a blueprint for states across the country.

Florida’s education reformers understand that antiwoke rhetoric alone is insufficient. A vision for education excellence must displace underperforming K-12 institutions. Florida has passed universal education savings accounts, which give families access to public per pupil funds for tuition to private or classical schools, school supplies and home-schooling aid.

J.D. Tuccille
Reason Magazine

Excerpt: Have we hit the high-water mark of social-justice loyalty pledges? The signs are encouraging for those of us who prefer to move through life without declaring fealty to political ideologies. Mandatory diversity, equity, and inclusion statements (DEI), which have become increasingly de rigueur political litmus tests for hiring at academic institutions, suffered a significant setback last week when Arizona's public universities unceremoniously dumped their use going forward.

Jeremy C. Young and Jeffrey Sachs
The Daily Beast

Excerpt: The legislative war on college and university free speech has sadly become a persistent feature of the policymaking process in statehouses across the country. Another round of state legislative sessions has come and gone and with it many new proposals that would impose extensive restrictions on what can be taught in higher education classrooms.

Press Release
Cornell Free Speech Alliance

Today, the Cornell Free Speech Alliance, a nonprofit and nonpartisan coalition of Cornell alumni, faculty, and students, sent a report featuring 20 policy recommendations to Cornell University leaders intended to restore open inquiry and academic freedom on campus. The recommendations are the culmination of nearly two years of research and dialogue that began in response to an increasingly degraded free speech environment at the University. The transmittal of the recommendations coincides with the beginning of Cornell’s free expression themed 2023-2024 academic year, which many consider to be an empty and insincere attempt by university leaders to deflect pressure over free speech concerns.

Robert C. Platt & Steven McGuire
Real Clear Education

“All children, except one, grow up,” wrote J.M. Barrie in “Peter Pan.” Today’s college and university administrators seem eager to prove him wrong. American students are increasingly micromanaged, coddled, and, as a result, controlled by the ever-growing ranks of bureaucrats who run their campus Neverlands. Now some institutions want to continue this infantilizing behavior after students graduate.

Alumni-affairs offices have developed overbearing codes of conduct to regulate volunteers and, in some cases, everyone who attends alumni events. Some of these codes prohibit constitutionally protected speech and require signatories to support institutional orthodoxies on topics such as diversity, equity, and inclusion.

J. David Goodman
New York Times

Excerpt: Cheryl Hensley, a librarian in Houston, was excited for the start of school. A veteran of four decades in the city’s public school system, she had stocked her library at Lockhart Elementary, a mostly Black school, with $40,000 in new books, and won a statewide award for her work. Then, late last month, Ms. Hensley, 62, was told she was no longer needed: The school’s library would be one of dozens turned into multipurpose computer rooms and used, in part, for discipline.