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FIRE
PHILADELPHIA, July 30, 2026 — U.S. colleges are increasingly eliminating or narrowing restrictive speech codes, continuing an encouraging trend that reflects a greater commitment to free expression on American campuses, a new study finds.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression’s 20th Spotlight on Speech Codes report found a record number of schools earning FIRE’s highest rating, alongside a continued decline in policies that clearly and substantially restrict student expression. FIRE also observed colleges increasingly removing “bias reporting” policies that solicit anonymous reports about speech protected by the First Amendment.
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There is an important lawsuit being litigated in the Southern District of New York over the limits of free speech and academic freedom for faculty at the United States Military Academy at West Point. Professor Tim Bakken, West Point’s longest-serving civilian law professor, is challenging new Trump Administration regulations that allegedly constitute unconstitutional prior restraints on academic publications and limit academic freedom and free speech.
The Report, and the follow-up disciplinary reports now being issued, raise uncomfortable questions for professors and for university leaders alike. Are there limits to professors’ freedom to conduct research and teach courses however they think best? Do university leaders dare intervene if scholarship becomes excessively politicized?
The Education Department is asking university leaders to publicly commit to a series of institutional changes, many of which are in line with the Trump administration’s higher education agenda, by the end of the year.
