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Penn was again ranked as one of the worst universities in the United States for free speech, according to an annual report evaluating college campuses.
The ranking, released by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, placed Penn at No. 227 out of 261 schools with an F grade and a score of 54.4 out of 100. Penn moved up four places and increased its score by 2.9 points from last year’s ranking. A University spokesperson declined to comment.
The assassination of Charlie Kirk generated a wave of censorship at America's colleges over the past year, further contributing to a climate in which too many students fear expressing themselves on campus.
Encouragingly, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression’s seventh annual College Free Speech Rankings found the percentage of students who said it was acceptable to shout down a speaker, block entry to a campus speech, or use violence to stop a campus speech declined slightly from last year’s record highs.
Thirty percent of college students say that using violence to stop campus speech is acceptable at least in rare cases, according to a new report from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.
It’s a slight decrease from a year ago, when a record-high 34 percent of students said the same, but it remains 12 points higher than in 2020, when 18 percent of students said violence was an acceptable response, at least in rare cases, to campus speech.
The organization founded by Charlie Kirk is returning to the Utah campus where the conservative commentator was killed to hold a memorial on the first anniversary of his death.
Utah Valley University has also decided to shut down its public campus in Orem that day — Thursday, Sept. 10 — to “provide time and space time for reflection” for students, staff and faculty to use in the way that works best for them. No classes will be held, according to a message to the community. Some students have pushed back on the closure and the administration’s decision to “hand over our campus” to Turning Point USA for the Kirk memorial event.
On Friday, U.S. District Judge Noël Wise ruled that immigration provisions that allowed Secretary of State Marco Rubio to revoke student visas had a chilling effect on noncitizen student journalists at the Stanford Daily. Wise wrote that portions of two federal immigration provisions are unconstitutional when used against noncitizens for speech protected by the First Amendment.
The Stanford Daily Publishing Corporation brought the lawsuit alongside two anonymous students unaffiliated with Stanford, though one student was later dismissed from the case. The plaintiffs were represented pro bono by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, or FIRE.
