National Free Speech News & Commentary

John Wilson
Academe Blog

Excerpt: On August 14, the Cornell Free Speech Alliance (CFSA) issued a report, “Lifting The Fog: Restoring Academic Freedom & Free Expression At Cornell University,” that made policy recommendations for how Cornell can improve its climate for free speech. Keith Whittington at Reason called the report “a valuable agenda for faculty across the country.” Carl Neuss, the chair of the Cornell Free Speech Alliance board, declared that the “recommendations themselves sort of read like mom and apple pie—it’s hard to not agree with them,”

While it’s a thoughtful approach that includes some good ideas, the report also includes an alarming number of calls to suppress free expression. Sadly, it’s not all mom and apple pie.

September-October 2023
Jonathan Shaw
Harvard Magazine

Excerpt: At Harvard, there are research areas that can’t be investigated, subjects that can’t be broached in public, and ideas that can’t be discussed in a classroom. So says a group of more than 120 Harvard faculty members, who have formed a Council on Academic Freedom to respond to perceived assaults on free inquiry and a climate of eroded trust that they say stifle dissent.

Press release
Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression

Today, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression filed a lawsuit on behalf of six California community college professors to halt new, systemwide regulations forcing professors to espouse and teach politicized conceptions of “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” Each of the professors teach at one of three Fresno-area community colleges within the State Center Community College District. Under the new regulations, all of the more-than-54,000 professors who teach in the California Community Colleges system must incorporate “anti-racist” viewpoints into classroom teaching.

The regulations explicitly require professors to pledge allegiance to contested ideological viewpoints. Professors must “acknowledge” that “cultural and social identities are diverse, fluid, and intersectional,” and they must develop “knowledge of the intersectionality of social identities and the multiple axes of oppression that people from different racial, ethnic, and other minoritized groups face.” Faculty performance and tenure will be evaluated based on professors’ commitment to and promotion of the government’s viewpoints.

Eric Rasmusen, Indiana University professor

Excerpt: Suppose a university has an online form where anyone can report something a student says in private conversation and the report goes into a special surveillance software database that the university bought from the Maxient company for that purpose. A Bias Response Team receives notice of the report, and sees that it is political speech protected by the First Amendment. The Team leaves the report in the student’s file, and asks the student to come to a voluntary meeting. Virginia Tech’s policy in a case like this was to: Invite them to engage in a voluntary conversation. . . . If a student fails to respond to this message, or declines to meet with our office, no further action is taken and the student faces no consequences of any kind.

Would such a bias response apparatus chill speech at the university? Speech First and three circuits say yes; Virginia Tech (Sands) and two circuits say no. Surveillance software is part of that, since they are what bias response teams rely upon, including the BIRT’s at Virginia Tech. Speech First’s cert petition [for Supreme Court review] says, “Precisely because speech codes are often struck down, universities have looked for subtler, more sophisticated ways to chill ‘offensive’ speech.”

Scott Yenor and Anna Miller
Wall Street Journal

Excerpt: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s antiwoke education agenda has drawn national attention, but equally important and far less noticed is how Mr. DeSantis advanced new educational standards. A pedagogical revolution is afoot in the Sunshine State, which could serve as a blueprint for states across the country.

Florida’s education reformers understand that antiwoke rhetoric alone is insufficient. A vision for education excellence must displace underperforming K-12 institutions. Florida has passed universal education savings accounts, which give families access to public per pupil funds for tuition to private or classical schools, school supplies and home-schooling aid.

J.D. Tuccille
Reason Magazine

Excerpt: Have we hit the high-water mark of social-justice loyalty pledges? The signs are encouraging for those of us who prefer to move through life without declaring fealty to political ideologies. Mandatory diversity, equity, and inclusion statements (DEI), which have become increasingly de rigueur political litmus tests for hiring at academic institutions, suffered a significant setback last week when Arizona's public universities unceremoniously dumped their use going forward.