National Free Speech News & Commentary

Commentary: The AAUP abandons its mission to defend academic freedom

February 20, 2025 1 min read

Jerry Coyne
Why Evolution is True

Excerpt: In less than a year, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) has completely abandoned its mission.

As U. Chicago law professor Tom Ginsburg points out in a Chronicle of Higher Education piece, however, the AAUP, however, has taken several positions within the last year that are either inimical or orthogonal to academic freedom. To put it frankly, the AAUP has become authoritarian, adhering to “progressive” politics and abandoning those precepts that it once adopted to further academic freedom.

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Commentary: Trump Wants to Destroy Higher Education

February 20, 2025 1 min read

John Warner
Inside Higher Ed

Excerpt: Together, we should be clear on what President Donald Trump is trying to do to higher education.

Destroy it. Whatever public rationales he or his administration release, the intent of his actions is clear, so if we’re going to discuss responses to those actions, we must remember, always, that Donald Trump is trying to destroy higher education.

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More tips for being non-partisan in a partisan age

February 20, 2025 1 min read

Greg Lukianoff
The Eternally Radical Idea, Substack

Excerpt: Over the past couple of months, I’ve explored how (despite numerous, contradictory, and ridiculous accusations to the contrary) FIRE has been able to remain non-partisan even in an era punctuated by intense partisanship. I also tried to turn that reflection into advice for others on how they can do the same.

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Commentary: Universities Must Reject Creeping Politicization

February 19, 2025 1 min read

By Daniel Diermeier and Andrew D. Martin
Chronicle of Higher Education

Excerpt: American research universities are vital to the nation’s economy, security, and democratic systems. Their capacity for research and innovation is unmatched. They offer students a proven path to higher wages and career advancement. If they are properly focused on their core purpose, universities are an essential training ground for civic life in a pluralistic society. At a time when everything is contested, universities insist on reason, evidence, and truth. 

With so much at stake, universities must return to their foundational purpose and recommit to the core principles that sustain them.

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Commentary: The Rebel Campus Boosters Rising Up Against Wokeness on Campus

February 19, 2025 1 min read

John Murawski 
RealClear Investigations

Excerpt: Alarmed by academia’s dominant ideological ethos of social justice activism – particularly the holy trinity of race, sex, and gender – more than two dozen dissident groups have emerged seeking to rebalance the culture at leading public and private universities across the country, including Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, MIT, Stanford, UCLA, Williams, the University of North Carolina and the University of Virginia. 

They are expected to gain traction with Donald Trump back in the White House.

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Commentary: Most DEI endeavors in higher education are declared illegal

February 17, 2025 1 min read

Why Evolution is True
Jerry Coyne 

Excerpt: The time has come that many have feared but many will celebrate: DEI (“diversity, equity, and inclusion”) is effectively gone from campuses by federal order.

Since virtually every institution of higher learning depends on some federal funding, this gives colleges the choices of abandoning DEI or abandoning federal money. You know which they’ll prefer. The former, of course, but they’ll try to have both, sometimes by duplicitous practices.

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