FIRE to Congress: More work needed to protect free speech on college campuses

December 19, 2024 1 min read

Sofia Lopez
FIRE

Excerpt: What is the state of free speech on college campuses? More students now support shouting down speakers. Several institutions faced external pressure from government entities to punish constitutionally protected speech. And the number of “red light” institutions — those with policies that significantly restrict free speech — rose for the second year in a row, reversing a 15-year trend of decreasing percentages of red light schools, according to FIRE research.

These are just a few of the concerns shared by FIRE’s Lead Counsel for Government Affairs Tyler Coward, who joined lawmakers, alumni groups, students, and stakeholders last week in a discussion on the importance of improving freedom of expression on campus.

Click here for link to full article

Leave a comment


Also in National Free Speech News & Commentary

College-Age Jews Are Heading South

August 26, 2025 1 min read

Rose Horowitch 
The Atlantic 

Excerpt: Even before the Ivy League upheavals of the past two years, Jewish students had been slowly drifting away from the elite campuses of the Northeast. Now, as some seek respite from the protest movement that erupted after the Israeli response to the October 7, 2023, Hamas invasion of southern Israel, the drift has become more like—sorry—an exodus. And selective colleges outside the Northeast, sensing an intensifying disdain for Ivy League schools among Jewish teens and their parents, are tripping over one another to recruit these students.

Read More
Commentary: Trump Isn’t Fixing America’s Campuses. He’s Bleeding Them Dry.

August 25, 2025 1 min read

Frank Bruni
New York Times

Excerpt: What Trump and his allies are doing is no targeted effort to correct that. It’s a sweeping, indiscriminate, performative smackdown of elite institutions by a crew trying to solidify its power under the banner of anti-elitism. It doesn’t attempt to usher those institutions from a place of bias and extremism to one of neutrality and moderation. It answers excess with excess, orthodoxy with orthodoxy, censorship with censorship. And it disregards the damage it’s doing.

Read More
Commentary: How Chris Rufo Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love Cancel Culture

August 25, 2025 1 min read

Cathy Young
The Bulwark

Excerpt: Last week's right-wing freakout over the Cracker Barrel logo redesign—apparently amounting to white-guy erasure—had more than its share of sublimely ridiculous moments. But none, perhaps, were more emblematic of the current “anti-woke” crusade than the call to action from author, activist, and Manhattan Institute fellow Chris Rufo.

Of course, what also makes it noteworthy is that Rufo isn’t just some random social-media blowhard. In recent months, he has emerged as the unofficial ideologue of the Trumpian assault on the liberal cultural establishment.

Read More