Campus Protests and Free Expression

By Amanda Nordstrom
Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression

Excerpt: Graduation time used to be known as “disinvitation season” around FIRE’s offices, as we prepared for the yearly increase in demands by faculty members and students to revoke the invitations of guest speakers — often commencement and keynote speakers — because of something the speaker did, said, or believes.

By Hannah Natanson
The Washington Post

Excerpt: Books about LGBTQ people are fast becoming the main target of a historic wave of school book challenges — and a large percentage of the complaints come from a minuscule number of hyperactive adults, a first-of-its-kind Washington Post analysis found.

By Adrienne Lu
Chronicle of Higher Education

Excerpt: A former psychology professor this week sued the University of California system, claiming that its use of diversity statements in hiring represents “a thinly veiled attempt to ensure dogmatic conformity throughout the university system.”

By Eduardo Peñalver
Chronicle of Higher Education

Excerpt: The fact that Martinez’s letter, written in response to her students’ constrained conception of expressive freedom, is being hailed as a watershed moment — even as dozens of states consider or implement bans on critical race theory — reveals a great deal about the complex and often confused nature of our national conversation about freedom of speech on (and off) campus.

By Yascha Mounk
Persuasion, Substack

Excerpt: Last weekend, PEN America—which is dedicated to defending and promoting free expression around the globe—canceled a panel in which dissident writers, including Russian journalists who have long been deeply critical of Putin’s regime, were going to present their work.

By Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression

Excerpt: Earlier today, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law Florida Senate Bill 266, which doubles down on the “Stop WOKE Act.”