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Sean Stevens and Greg Lukianoff
The Eternally Radical Idea
Excerpt: We’ve both written a lot about how hostility to freedom of expression on college and university campuses has grown and intensified over the past decade. One thing that tends to go unacknowledged is that, during this time period, a tacit unholy alliance between administrators and students has emerged. In this piece, we’ll explore how this alliance has contributed to a record-breaking surge in deplatforming attempts on American college and university campuses over the past two years.
Robby Soave
Reason Magazine
Excerpt: Newly inaugurated President Donald Trump signed a bevy of executive orders earlier this week, including one that seeks to end the federal government's pressure campaign on social media companies.
The "Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship" executive order reaffirms the free speech rights of social media users and prohibits government agents from engaging in unconstitutional censorship.
Elyse C. Goncalves and Akshaya Ravi
Harvard Crimson
Excerpt: Harvard Medical School canceled a planned Jan. 21 lecture on wartime healthcare and a subsequent panel with patients from Gaza receiving care in Boston in response to objections that students would hear from Gazans impacted by the war and not also Israelis.
Course instructors and students were notified Tuesday morning that the events — scheduled for that evening — would not be held. Medical School Dean George Q. Daley ’82 wrote in a Wednesday email sent to first-year students and obtained by The Crimson that his office began receiving complaints from students and faculty within days after the session was first publicized last week.
Jonathan Turley
Jonathan Turley’s Blog
Excerpt: Last night, I discussed a new executive order signed by President Donald Trump that included an extension of his earlier move against “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) policies to the area of higher education. The order makes direct reference to the decision of the United States Supreme Court in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, 600 U.S. 181 (2023) banning the use of race in college admissions and instructs the Departments of Education and Justice to investigate any circumvention of the prohibition by colleges and universities.
The order effectively carries out the mandate declared by Chief Justice John Roberts: “Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it.” Since the EO has not been officially posted on the government website, I have included the full language below.
FIRE
Excerpt: West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey issued an executive order yesterday to eliminate certain diversity, equity, and inclusion practices in state agencies and organizations that receive state money. While the state may limit certain programs or activities of state agencies, the executive order is written so broadly that it applies to classroom instruction in higher education.
As such, the executive order violates the First Amendment and must be rescinded or amended to make clear that it does not affect what’s discussed in college classrooms.
Katherine Knott
Inside Higher Ed
Excerpt: A federal district judge in Kentucky tossed out President Biden’s overhaul of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, ruling Thursday that the regulations exceeded the department’s statutory authority and violated the U.S. Constitution.
The Education Department is now unable to enforce the new regulations, which took effect last summer following a lengthy process to rewrite a rule put in place by the first Trump administration. The decision was part of a lawsuit brought by Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.
