Campus Protests and Free Expression

Greg Lukianoff
The Eternally Radical Idea, Substack

Excerpt: For the fifth consecutive year, FIRE has delivered its annual College Free Speech Rankings. This year, we paired the largest survey of college student attitudes on free expression ever conducted (almost 59,000 students surveyed!) with the most comprehensive databases ever collected of deplatforming attempts, professor cancellation attempts, student cancellation attempts (full database forthcoming, but the incidents used in the rankings calculation are on our website), and speech codes ever collected.  

The full report is well worth reading. But to prime you for it, here are five key takeaways that show how colleges have moved around, explore why that might be, and highlight what students need to work on most.

FIRE Press Release

Excerpt: This year’s College Free Speech Rankings — released today by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression and College Pulse — offer comprehensive insights into the state of free speech on America’s college campuses.

The largest report of its kind, the rankings draw from more than 58,000 student responses representing more than 250 colleges and universities nationwide. The report arrives at a time when protest over the Israel-Hamas war has put campus speech concerns at the forefront of the national conversation for nearly a year.

Jerry Coyne
Why Evolution is True

Excerpt: I think there’s little doubt that the pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel protests will once again roil colleges campuses this coming academic year.  As protestors vow that they’ll continue their activities, legal or not, and as Israel continues to root Hamas out of Gaza, I fully expect more trouble come this fall.

Josh Moody
Inside Higher Ed

Excerpt: Roughly two dozen pro-Palestinian protesters, many wearing masks and keffiyehs, blocked access to a convocation ceremony at Pomona College Tuesday, The Claremont Courier reported. The local news outlet said that protesters refused to comply with requests from campus safety officers who asked them to move, remove their masks and show their student identification. The group Pomona Divest From Apartheid took credit for the protest.

“WE SHUT DOWN CONVOCATION,” the group posted on Instagram Tuesday.

Susan H. Greenberg
Inside Higher Ed

Excerpt: Police arrested four pro-Palestinian protesters at the University of Michigan Wednesday after demonstrators sought to disrupt a student activity fair, The Detroit Free Press reported.

None of the arrested were students, Colleen Mastony, assistant vice president for public affairs, told the Free Press; three were unaffiliated with the university and one was a temporary employee. About 50 protesters showed up during the campus's annual Festifall event and refused requests to leave.

Natalie Schwartz
Higher Ed Dive

Excerpt: Missouri Rep. Jason Smith, the chair of the Ways and Means Committee, and North Carolina Rep. Virginia Foxx, chair of the Committee on Education and the Workforce, sent letters last week asking that the institutions share their campus plans with lawmakers by Sept. 5.

The two legislators also asked the college officials to explain what changes they’ve made to their disciplinary procedures to “help deter future misconduct.” The letters signal that Republican lawmakers will continue to scrutinize how colleges are responding to campus unrest in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war.