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Amy Reid, Jonathan Friedman, Laura Benitez, Jeffrey Adam Sachs
PEN America
More than half of U.S. college and university students now study in a state with at least one law or policy restricting what can be taught or how campuses can operate.
There is no use in sugarcoating things. For higher education in America, 2025 was a year of catastrophe. Across nearly every conceivable front – from state capitals to Capitol Hill and even on social media – America’s politicians have been a full-scale campaign against colleges and universities, with a concerted focus on speech. The toll is immense. Fear among faculty, students, and administrators is widespread. Self-censorship in teaching and research is rampant.
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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.
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.
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.
