Supporting Students Free Expression

By American Association of University Professors

Excerpt: A new report concludes that the administration of Hamline University violated the academic freedom of Professor Erika López Prater after a student complained of having been offended by Professor López Prater’s presentation of two images of the Prophet Muhammad during an online session of her art history class in October 2022.

By Zach Greenburg
Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression

Excerpt: Cold winters, hot wings, and “a place where you’ll make a real difference.” That’s what University at Buffalo offers its students — but not those who want to pursue their passions by participating in certain student groups. A new student government policy threatens to derecognize dozens of student groups solely for their affiliation with outside organizations. FIRE calls on the university to walk back this egregious violation of students’ First Amendment right to freedom of association.

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 Angel Eduardo
Persuasion, Substack

Excerpt: If only out of pure self-interest, we shouldn’t just be willing to hear the arguments of those with whom we disagree, we should be eager to. Without letting them speak, you can’t know where they stand, and, to paraphrase John Stuart Mill’s famous quote from On Liberty: If you don't know the other side's argument, you really don't know much of your own, either.

By Jordan Howell
Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression

Excerpt: An Illinois teacher is out of a job after a group of parents accused her of “child grooming” for including an LGBTQ-themed book in a reading assignment for eighth grade students in the town of Heyworth. The book is one of nearly a hundred of all different subjects and themes provided to students back in March as part of the assignment, and Heyworth Chief of Police Michael Geriets seized dozens of books during his sprawling, weeks-long investigation.

By Harrison Rosenthal
Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression

Excerpt: In a victory for academic freedom, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill announced its decision to not implement recommendations made by the School of Medicine’s Task Force to Integrate Social Justice into the Curriculum that would condition tenure and promotion on faculty commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion.