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More than half of U.S. college and university students now study in a state with at least one law or policy restricting what can be taught or how campuses can operate.
There is no use in sugarcoating things. For higher education in America, 2025 was a year of catastrophe. Across nearly every conceivable front – from state capitals to Capitol Hill and even on social media – America’s politicians have been a full-scale campaign against colleges and universities, with a concerted focus on speech. The toll is immense. Fear among faculty, students, and administrators is widespread. Self-censorship in teaching and research is rampant.
Last November, a faculty report from UC San Diego showed that over the past five years, the number of freshmen placed in remedial math had increased thirtyfold. Reactions ranged from sober warnings about declining readiness to claims of a collegiate “math horror show.” In response, some commentators argued that treating the findings as a problem reflected a culture-war misunderstanding about equity, student success, or what colleges “really do.”
That reaction entirely misses the point. The UC San Diego report exposed something far more consequential. American colleges are failing at one of their core economic functions: They are no longer acting as credible gatekeepers for employers.
Several hundred feet from the White House, down a concrete path and across a quiet brick courtyard adorned with historical markers lie the doors to a small courthouse. The Court of Federal Claims, a legal venue where the U.S. government is always the one being sued. The building is now poised to be the site of fights over droves of terminated research grants.
Although it’s the latest iteration of a court that’s existed since 1855, predating Lincoln’s election, it’s not a well-known institution. It’s not the subject of on-screen, steamy legal dramas. But the U.S. Supreme Court’s preliminary rulings last year have elevated its importance for higher ed.
The Network of Enlightened Women works on dozens of U.S. college campuses to amplify the voices of conservative young women who are questioning progressive orthodoxies. Free Expression associate editor Mary Julia Koch spoke recently with Karin Lips, the founder and president of NeW, about her mission to support conservative women in college and in their careers, and how she’s pushing back on the left’s definition of feminism.
A trial began Friday for five current and former Stanford University students who occupied the university president’s offices during a pro-Palestinian protest in 2024 — in a rare instance of demonstrators facing trial for actions from the wave of campus protests that year.
Prosecutors accused the demonstrators of spray-painting on the building, breaking windows and furniture, disabling security cameras and splattering a red liquid described as fake blood on items throughout the offices. The university is seeking $329,000 in restitution.
One of the central justifications for universities is that they are needed to form citizens. Citizens need not just a fluency with the ideas that are contending for dominance in our democracy, but also an ability to assess them critically. This is especially true for the next generation of elites who will go on to exercise an outsized influence over national and international affairs.
This crucial role for academia raises some fundamental questions: How well are colleges and universities preparing the young to assume such powers? Are students being exposed to a broad range of intellectual perspectives that give shape to these controversies and illuminate the complexity of the issues at stake? To shine a light on these questions, we draw on a unique database of college syllabi collected by the "Open Syllabus" (OS) database.
