Campus Protests and Free Expression

Jonathan Turley
Jonathan Turley’s Blog

Excerpt: We have another successful “deplatforming” of a speaker at a university this week after Rep. Mike Collins (R-GA) had to be removed from an event at the University of Georgia. This follows incidents discussed this week involving student protests at Tulane and Maryland.

Rep. Collins was invited to speak on campus by the University of Georgia Turning Point USA chapter and College Republicans. His remarks, however, were drowned out by protesters screaming profanities and insults.

Jonathan Turley
Jonathan Turley’s Blog

Excerpt: University of Maryland President Darryll Pines has joined the ignoble line of educators and administrators enabling the growing anti-free speech movement on our campuses. Pines has defended the shouting down of Rep. Jamie Raskin (D., Md). as exercising free speech as hecklers. He is dead wrong and the Board of Directors should address his inimical view of free speech in higher education.

As for Raskin, it is an ironic but telling moment from a member of Congress who has supported censorship and consistently opposed efforts to investigate the silencing of those with opposing views.

Randall Kennedy
Chronicle of Higher Education

Excerpt: On a posting for a position as an assistant professor in international and comparative education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, applicants are required to submit a CV, a cover letter, a research statement, three letters of reference, three or more writing samples, and a statement of teaching philosophy that includes a description of their “orientation toward diversity, equity, and inclusion practices.”

At Harvard and elsewhere, hiring for academic jobs increasingly requires these so-called diversity statements, which Harvard’s Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning describes as being “about your commitment to furthering EDIB within the context of institutions of higher education.” By requiring academics to profess — and flaunt — faith in DEI, the proliferation of diversity statements poses a profound challenge to academic freedom.

Johanna Alonso
Inside Higher Ed

Excerpt: Pro-Palestinian protesters interrupted a speech by Maryland Congressman Jamie Raskin, a Democrat, at the University of Maryland on Thursday, the Capital News Service reported.

The protesters shouted that Raskin was “complicit in genocide,” to which he responded that he has advocated for hostages to be freed and for a ceasefire. Raskin was unable to continue his planned speech on democracy as the protesters continued heckling him and arguing with audience members. But he said he was willing to take questions, which led to further discussion about Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza. University President Darryll Pines eventually stepped in to end the lecture early.

Samuel J. Abrams
Washington Examiner

Excerpt: Higher education is in crisis. A week rarely passes without an incident on a college campus in which cancel culture manages to shut down a speaker or an event. And while this sad state of affairs on campuses is now too familiar, self-censorship has moved well beyond leafy quads, lecture halls, and student unions and into the mainstream.

Alexandra Alter
The New York Times

Excerpt: After several years of rising book bans, censorship efforts continued to surge last year, reaching the highest levels ever recorded by the American Library Association. Last year, 4,240 individual titles were targeted for removal from libraries, up from 2,571 titles in 2022, according to a report released Thursday by the association.

Those figures likely fail to capture the full scale of book removals, as many go unreported. The American Library Association, which has tracked book bans for more than 20 years, compiles data from book challenges that library professionals reported to the group and information gathered from news reports.