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Alumni possess wisdom and perspective that current students do not yet possess. They also have something that current students don’t: money that can be used to get the attention of university leaders. Sometimes alumni can make the greatest contribution to their alma maters by not contributing. For me, four decades after graduating from MIT, this is one of those times.
Academic Freedom Alliance statement on the assassination of Charlie Kirk
The Academic Freedom Alliance (AFA) is a coalition of faculty from across the country and across the ideological spectrum who are dedicated
to upholding the principles of academic freedom and free speech for faculty at colleges and universities throughout the US.
Located in Princeton, the AFA was founded by Keith Whittington, former Princeton professor of Politics now a professor at Yale Law School; Robert P. George, a professor of jurisprudence at Princeton; public intellectual and former Princeton professor Cornel West; Jeannie Suk Gersen, a professor of law at Harvard Law School; and Nadine Strossen, the former national President of the American Civil Liberties Union and professor emerita at New York Law School. Since its founding in 2021 the AFA has grown its membership to over 900 faculty from across the country.
FIRE
Excerpt: Today, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression sued Secretary of State Marco Rubio, challenging two federal immigration law provisions that give him unchecked power to revoke legal immigrants’ visas and deport them for protected speech.
Since March, Rubio and the Trump administration have waged an assault on free speech, targeting foreign university students for deportation based on bedrock protected speech like writing op-eds and attending protests. Their attack is casting a pall of fear over millions of noncitizens, who now worry that voicing the “wrong” opinion about America or Israel will result in deportation.
FIRE
Excerpt: The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression agreed to drop its First Amendment lawsuit against Chappaqua Central School District after the district’s board of education adopted a robust First Amendment regulation that will protect the constitutional free speech rights of its students.
FIRE sued the district in 2024 on behalf of O.J., an LGBTQ+ student suspended for violating the district’s “hate speech” definition in its code of conduct because he used the words “faggot” and “twink” in a rap song recorded in his friend’s home after school.
Ilya Somin
The Volokh Conspiracy, Reason Magazine
Excerpt: In a previous post, I urged universities to band together to file a lawsuit challenging Donald Trump's policy of speech-based deportation of foreign students and academics. So far, I have had little, if any, success in persuading schools to do so. Many individual academics have expressed support for the idea (originated by the faculty of the Tufts Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy), but no university administrations have acted on it.
Still, I am happy to see that 86 colleges and higher education associations filed an amicus brief in a case challenging the deportations filed by the the Knight First Amendment Institute on behalf of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and the Middle East Studies Association (MESA).
FIRE
Excerpt: The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of an LGBTQ+ student organization to block a new policy from the Texas A&M University System that bans drag performances on its 11 public campuses — a clear violation of the First Amendment.
