Trustee Responsibility Free Speech

Sophia Damian 
James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal 

Excerpt: In a recent Inside Higher Ed/Hanover Research survey, over 90 percent of college professors from public, private, two-year, and four-year universities said they strongly or somewhat agree that academic freedom in higher education is under threat. Moreover, 55 percent believe that academic freedom is under threat on their own campuses.

The survey further found that, due to this sense of declining academic freedom, many professors are self-censoring on topics such as Israel/Palestine, “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” and federal politics in general.

David Josef Volodzko
The Radicalist, Substack 

Excerpt: As a former educator, I believe education is the cornerstone of democracy, not merely because it equips citizens with the tools to thrive professionally, nor because it deepens our understanding of the human condition through exposure to the arts, but because it fosters the critical capacity to make informed decisions.

Yet how can teachers accomplish this critical task if they are too scared to share their actual viewpoints with the class, even within the areas of their expertise?

Jonathan Chait
The Atlantic

Excerpt: A decade ago, cultural norms in elite American institutions took a sharply illiberal turn. Professors would get disciplined, journalists fired, ordinary people harassed by social-media mobs, over some decontextualized phrase or weaponized misunderstanding. Every so often, I would write about these events or the debates that they set off.

But I haven’t written about this phenomenon in a long time, and I recently realized why: because it isn’t happening any more. Left-wing outrage mobs might still form here or there, but liberal America has built up enough antibodies that they no longer have much effect. My old articles now feel like dispatches from a distant era.

Johanna Alonso
Inside Higher Ed

Excerpt: After an unprecedented spring of pro-Palestinian protests on campuses across the United States, the fall semester has been comparatively quiet. The total number of protest actions declined by more than 64 percent, from 3,220 to 1,151, according to data from the Crowd Counting Consortium, a project by Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and the University of Connecticut that collects data on protests.

Ryan Quinn
Inside Higher Ed

Excerpt: The firing of a University of Michigan official has raised questions about who was involved in the decision as well as why exactly the diversity, equity and inclusion leader was shown the door.

Many media outlets reported within the past few days that the university fired Rachel Dawson, who led the Office of Academic Multicultural Initiatives, after she allegedly made antisemitic comments at a conference in March. University officials initially declined to fire Dawson but reversed course after facing pressure from at least one member of the Board of Regents, The New York Times reported.

Sofia Lopez
FIRE

Excerpt: What is the state of free speech on college campuses? More students now support shouting down speakers. Several institutions faced external pressure from government entities to punish constitutionally protected speech. And the number of “red light” institutions — those with policies that significantly restrict free speech — rose for the second year in a row, reversing a 15-year trend of decreasing percentages of red light schools, according to FIRE research.

These are just a few of the concerns shared by FIRE’s Lead Counsel for Government Affairs Tyler Coward, who joined lawmakers, alumni groups, students, and stakeholders last week in a discussion on the importance of improving freedom of expression on campus.