National Free Speech News & Commentary

Andreas Bikfalvi MD PhD
Substack, Heterodox STEM

Excerpt: I define Ideology-Based Investigations (IBIs) as inquiries that are not grounded in a rigorous scientific theoretical framework, where hypotheses can be tested. Instead, they rely on philosophical or legal scholarship that presents a veneer of scientific credibility. When these investigations originate from the left, they are rooted in post-modern or critical theory scholarship. Conversely, when they come from the right, they are associated with a mythological interpretation of past and present history. The American philosopher Michael Huemer [1], has referred to these as “progressive myths” when propagated by the left, but we should also recognize the concept of “reactionary myths” for those promoted by the right.

Emma Camp
Reason Magazine

Excerpt: Last year, student-led protests over the Israel-Hamas war broke out at dozens of college campuses. With the new school year well underway, student demonstrations have begun again in earnest.

According to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), attempts to deplatform speakers were surging by this April. Of the 67 attempts it had recorded from January to mid-April, 73 percent involved controversy surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. So how did a year of raucous—and occasionally disruptive and destructive—protest affect student opinions on free speech?

Jessica Blake
Inside Higher Ed

Excerpt: Republicans are primed to ratchet up their efforts to hold colleges accountable after securing a majority in the House and Senate.

With President-elect Donald Trump in the White House, the table is set for the GOP to make significant progress on a higher ed wish list that includes granting federal aid to nontraditional programs, increasing taxes on wealthy colleges, cracking down on campus antisemitism and busting the current model for accreditation, experts say.

David Brooks
The Atlantic

Excerpt: Every coherent society has a social ideal—an image of what the superior person looks like. In America, from the late 19th century until sometime in the 1950s, the superior person was the Well-Bred Man. Such a man was born into one of the old WASP families that dominated the elite social circles on Fifth Avenue, in New York City; the Main Line, outside Philadelphia; Beacon Hill, in Boston. He was molded at a prep school like Groton or Choate, and came of age at Harvard, Yale, or Princeton. In those days, you didn’t have to be brilliant or hardworking to get into Harvard, but it really helped if you were “clubbable”—good-looking, athletic, graceful, casually elegant, Episcopalian, and white.

And then a small group of college administrators decided to blow it all up.

Campus Reform

Excerpt: Hours after the Student Advisory Committee president of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics declared that the organization should no longer be nonpartisan, the director reaffirmed the institute’s commitment to remaining nonpartisan.

Robert H. Fogel and Peter N. Jones
The Harvard Crimson

Excerpt: In an op-ed published on Thursday, Institute of Politics student president Pratyush Mallick argued that the organization must abandon its practice of nonpartisanship.

We disagree. Adopting a partisan stance would jeopardize the fundamental mission of the IOP, inhibit necessary conversations, and further isolate students from perspectives held by a majority of Americans.