Commentary: The trouble with ‘dignity’

Dylynn Lasky Bobby Ramkissoon October 14, 2025 1 min read

Dylynn Lasky Bobby Ramkissoon
FIRE

Excerpt: After the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, universities faced a dilemma that has become grimly familiar in the age of social media: what to do when a member of the campus community says something online that others find intolerable.

Within days, institutions moved with visible urgency. Some suspended employees. Others terminated them outright. A few launched “investigations” whose conclusions seemed preordained. The message these colleges sent was unmistakable: offensive speech is not merely offensive, it is an assault on human dignity itself. And that, in the eyes of administrators, makes it punishable.

Click here for link to full article 


Leave a comment

Comments will be approved before showing up.


Also in National Free Speech News & Commentary

After punishing people for Charlie Kirk comments, colleges are paying steep settlements
After punishing people for Charlie Kirk comments, colleges are paying steep settlements

Graham Piro  July 16, 2026 1 min read

Violating the First Amendment will cost you. Universities and other public institutions are learning this lesson the hard way as the dust settles on a series of lawsuits brought by university faculty and staff who were punished for their comments about Charlie Kirk’s murder last September.

Read More
Inside An Elite University’s Campaign To Bring Conservatives to Campus
Inside An Elite University’s Campaign To Bring Conservatives to Campus

Vince Bielski July 16, 2026 1 min read

If Johns Hopkins University wanted to signal its seriousness about creating an alternative to the left-leaning orthodoxy that permeates higher education, it couldn’t have done better than the recent hire of economist Peter Arcidiacono.

Read More
House Republicans Advance Legislation to Formally Dismantle ED
House Republicans Advance Legislation to Formally Dismantle ED

Jessica Blake July 16, 2026 1 min read

House Republicans have now formally backed President Donald Trump in fulfilling his campaign promise to dismantle the Department of Education, voting Wednesday to advance 10 bills that would codify the White House’s efforts to disperse numerous education programs and offices to other federal agencies.

Read More