National Free Speech News & Commentary

Jennifer Schuessler
New York Times

Excerpt: Academic freedom is a bedrock of the modern American university. And lately, it seems to be coming under fire from all directions.

For many scholars, the biggest danger is at public universities in Republican-controlled states like Florida, where Gov. Ron DeSantis has led the passage of laws that restrict what can be taught and spearheaded efforts to reshape whole institutions. But at some elite private campuses, faculty have increasingly begun organizing against a very different threat. Over the past year, faculty groups dedicated to academic freedom have sprung up at Harvard, Yale and Columbia, where even some liberal scholars argue that a prevailing progressive orthodoxy has created a climate of self-censorship and fear that stifles open inquiry.

Randall L. Kennedy, Princeton ‘77
Harvard Crimson

Excerpt: Many legal protections are grouped under two related but distinct categories: civil liberties and civil rights. The former, which includes the right to freedom of speech, protects individuals from oppression. The latter prevents wrongful discrimination against groups based on race, religion, national origin, or other attributes.

I have watched with dismay as leading civil liberties organizations — such as the American Civil Liberties Union, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, and the National Coalition Against Censorship — have struggled to attract the support of young African Americans, at least in part because those organizations are seen as defending the rights of racists. This alienation between supporters of civil rights and civil liberties is harmful and avoidable. Reconciliation is essential and urgently needed.

Jonathan Marks
The UnPopulist

Excerpt: No organization defends free speech on American college campuses more effectively than the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). It fights not only in the court of public opinion but also in real courts.

Challenging serious free speech abrogations on campuses is a worthy goal. But overstating the extent of repression on campus, as FIRE’s CEO and president Greg Lukianoff does in a recent article in the Atlantic, undermines that cause.

Dara Horn
The Atlantic

Excerpt: By now, December’s congressional hearing about anti-Semitism at universities, during which the presidents of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, and MIT all claimed that calls for the genocide of Jews would violate their university’s policies only “depending on the context,” is already a well-worn meme. Surely there is nothing left to say about this higher-education train wreck, after the fallout brought down two of those university presidents and spawned a thousand op-eds—except that all of the punditry about diversity and free speech and criticism of Israel has extravagantly missed the point.

Joe Killian
NC Newsline

Excerpt: When members of N.C. State University’s College of Education faculty voted to express “no confidence” in the university’s chancellor and provost last weekend, it was a first in the university’s history. But the largely symbolic vote reflects greater tensions on campuses across the UNC System, as faculty say they feel locked out of high level decision-making by administrators and political appointees.

Angel Eduardo
Foundation for Individual Rights in Expression

Excerpt: Last week, FIRE, along with the Academic Freedom Alliance and Heterodox Academy, released an open letter urging universities to adopt the principle of institutional neutrality articulated by the University of Chicago’s 1967 Report on the University’s Role in Political and Social Action, also known as the “Kalven Report.”

The Kalven Report posits the best way to guard against establishing party lines on campus — and deterring those who disagree from speaking out — is for schools to remain “the home and sponsor of critics,” rather than the critics themselves. This requires committing to “an extraordinary environment of freedom of inquiry and maintain[ing] an independence from political fashions, passions, and pressures.”