National Free Speech News & Commentary

Cass Sunstein
Volokh Conspiracy, Reason Magazine

Excerpt: Public colleges and universities are bound by the First Amendment. Their private counterparts are not (though a state might choose to apply the requirements of the First Amendment to them, as California has largely done). But if private universities choose to follow the First Amendment, they will make life a lot easier, and also a lot better, for faculty, administrators, and students alike.

One reason is that First Amendment principles make most cases easy. Still, there are plenty of hard cases. Many of the hardest arise when a college or university claims that restrictions are justified by its educational mission. In some cases, such restrictions really can be so justified. A university can direct a history professor to teach history, not physics, in a history class. That's a form of content discrimination, and it's okay.

Greg Lukianoff
The Eternally Radical Idea, Substack

Excerpt: For the fifth consecutive year, FIRE has delivered its annual College Free Speech Rankings. This year, we paired the largest survey of college student attitudes on free expression ever conducted (almost 59,000 students surveyed!) with the most comprehensive databases ever collected of deplatforming attempts, professor cancellation attempts, student cancellation attempts (full database forthcoming, but the incidents used in the rankings calculation are on our website), and speech codes ever collected.  

The full report is well worth reading. But to prime you for it, here are five key takeaways that show how colleges have moved around, explore why that might be, and highlight what students need to work on most.

FIRE Press Release

Excerpt: This year’s College Free Speech Rankings — released today by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression and College Pulse — offer comprehensive insights into the state of free speech on America’s college campuses.

The largest report of its kind, the rankings draw from more than 58,000 student responses representing more than 250 colleges and universities nationwide. The report arrives at a time when protest over the Israel-Hamas war has put campus speech concerns at the forefront of the national conversation for nearly a year.

Josh Moody
Inside Higher Ed

Excerpt: Last spring, many of the students protesting the war between Israel and Hamas demanded that their universities divest from weapons manufacturers and other companies profiting off the bloodshed in Gaza. Some called for total divestment from Israel, accusing college leaders of being complicit in a genocide as the death toll of Palestinian civilians continued to climb.

Multiple universities agreed to weigh the divestment demands—among other concessions—often in exchange for students dismantling encampments. So far, few have actually moved to divest; some boards are still weighing the option while others have voted against it. But a handful of institutions have vowed to disclose their holdings, and some, such as San Francisco State University, have agreed to re-evaluate their investment screening processes.

Michele Exner
Law & Liberty

Excerpt: Higher education is an important part of our society, so the question then becomes, how do we work to restore trust in these institutions? How can we work to truly make them neutral learning grounds where students can come to discuss ideas without having to fear retribution for their political beliefs?

In You Can’t Teach That! The Battle Over University Classrooms, Keith Whittington, a professor and scholar who has spent decades writing on the cross-section of academic freedom and the US Constitution, provides a well-researched and resourced analysis of the current issues facing colleges and universities, specifically public institutions.

Sara Weissman
Inside Higher Ed

Excerpt: University of Austin, a new higher ed institution founded by high-profile conservative figures, officially welcomed its inaugural class on Monday.

The university, sometimes referred to as UATX, markets itself as an institution born out of alarm over the “rising tide of illiberalism and censoriousness prevalent in America’s universities” and says it is committed to “the pursuit of truth.”