Your Cart is Empty
FIRE
Excerpt: Last week, an assassin silenced speech on a college campus. A family lost a father and a husband. As we have said without equivocation, political violence is never an acceptable response to free speech.
Appropriately, we can expect colleges and universities to place even greater emphasis on safety and security ahead of outside speakers arriving on campus moving forward. They have a moral and legal obligation to redouble their efforts to protect free speech as well as their campus community. However, administrators must not pass those security costs along to speakers or use security concerns as pretext to cancel a speaker’s appearance. Rewarding threats of violence by taxing speech or silencing speakers will only invite more threats and more violence.
Comments will be approved before showing up.
For the good of the Nation, university leadership must seize this occasion to drive essential reforms—a process some began by adopting positions of institutional neutrality and improving policies related to campus protests. Before the end of 2026, I call on every postsecondary institution to describe to the American public your commitments to rigorous teaching, pathbreaking research, and national service—commitments that make our universities a bedrock institution of the American republic.
Now the administration is back with Compact 2.0, formally titled "A National Call to Action to University Presidents and Governing Boards." It includes some rhetorical flourishes intended to make it seem less threatening to teaching, learning and research. But make no mistake: It once again asks colleges and universities to align themselves with a far-right agenda at the expense of students’ education and the public’s well-being.
