FAIR News: Professor Stands Up Against Penn State's Discrimination

June 29, 2023 1 min read

By Foundation Against Intolerance & Racism

Excerpt: Professor Zack De Piero began working at Pennsylvania State University in August of 2018 in the English department at the Abington campus. Almost immediately upon the outset of his employment, Professor De Piero noticed a race-essentialism focus, which he feared would be harmful to his students, a majority of which were from minority backgrounds and ethnicities.

On June 15th Professor De Piero filed suit against Penn State in federal court alleging violations of his civil rights under federal and Pennsylvania law. Professor De Piero is represented by FAIR Network Attorneys Michael Allen and Samantha Harris of Allen Harris Law.

Click here for link to full article


Leave a comment


Also in National Free Speech News & Commentary

I’m Betting $100 Million on a New University

November 05, 2025 1 min read

Jeff Yass
The Free Press

Excerpt: I am giving $100 million to the University of Austin because the feedback mechanisms of higher education are broken.

Almost every system that works, works because of feedback. Evolution works because helpful mutations survive while harmful ones die off. Democracy works because voters support effective leaders and remove ineffective ones. Markets work because prices tell producers when to ramp up or scale back. Science works because the data from an experiment tells the scientist how likely their hypothesis is to be false.

Read More
Institutional neutrality can’t be used to turn students into puppets

November 05, 2025 1 min read

Graham Piro
FIRE 

Excerpt: FIRE has previously argued for colleges and universities to adopt institutional neutrality, both as a boon for the campus climate and as an insurance policy for the university. By declaring itself neutral on major political and social issues, a university ensures that it does not chill potential dissenters on campus by constantly taking official positions on unresolved topics. 

But recently, two public universities demonstrated that they misunderstand what institutional neutrality entails. They used the principle to restrict student speech under the guise of protecting university neutrality.

Read More
No, Heckling Is Not Protected Speech

November 04, 2025 1 min read

Adam Goldstein
Chronicle of Higher Education

Excerpt: A recent essay in these pages by Charles F. Walker posits that the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression’s rankings don’t actually measure the speech climate of college campuses because they penalize colleges for disruptive speech that is constitutionally protected. Walker’s argument is rooted in a number of misconceptions, not the least of which is that he seems not to understand what the rankings are for. Moreover, he misrepresents the law around disruptive protests. But because the first problem swallows the second, let’s start there.

Read More