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Hollis Robbins
Inside Higher Ed
Excerpt: The reporting on the new Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression College Free Speech Rankings focuses on how things haven’t changed. The headline of Johanna Alonso’s excellent piece is “Students Report Less Tolerance for Controversial Speakers.”
To be clear, the issue of tolerance for campus speakers—and the physical safety of speakers and attendees—remains paramount, as last week’s violence made clear. But for me, FIRE’s study misses the single most profound change on college campuses: AI, and the reality that students are increasingly doing their intellectual exploration privately, not publicly.
Ryan Quinn
Inside Higher Ed
Excerpt: Top Republican politicians have fueled the ongoing national repression of higher ed employees and others who have allegedly made offensive statements about last week’s shooting death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. But Texas governor Greg Abbott has taken the campaign to another level: going after individual students.
Abbott, who has more than 1.4 million followers on X, used that social media website to call for Texas State University to expel a student who appeared to mime Kirk’s shooting at a vigil for Kirk. Shortly after, university president Kelly Damphousse announced that a student in a “disturbing” video “is no longer a student at TXST.”
David Sims
The Atlantic
Excerpt: There have already been signs that President Donald Trump’s administration is intent on punishing perceived critics in the media, no matter what complaints about free speech might arise, but the chain of events that shut down Jimmy Kimmel Live feels particularly direct. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Brendan Carr, the Trump-appointed chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, said on Benny Johnson’s podcast yesterday.
“These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.” Within hours, Nexstar, a company that operates 32 of ABC’s 200 local affiliates, said it would not broadcast Kimmel’s show for the “foreseeable future.” Quickly after that, ABC announced its decision.
Princetonians for Free Speech
The political violence that has ravaged America for too many years has now led to the horrifying assassination on September 10, on the campus of Utah Valley University, of conservative firebrand Charlie Kirk, a champion of free speech whose attacks on the left helped win him a big following among young conservatives while infuriating many on the left. He was planning to debate all comers at the campus event, as was his custom.
