National Free Speech News & Commentary

Harvard’s Latest Speech Controversy

October 30, 2025 1 min read

The Crimson Editorial Board,
Harvard Crimson

Excerpt: Harvard just can’t stay out of the spotlight.

This time, Dunster House resident dean Gregory K. Davis recently came under fire after the right-wing website Yardreport published screenshots of years-old inflammatory social media posts and called for his removal.

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Commentary: The global free speech recession

October 30, 2025 1 min read

Matthew Harwood
FIRE 

Excerpt: Since Charlie Kirk’s murder, the Trump administration has launched a blitzkrieg against Americans’ free speech rights. The scale and speed are dizzying — and they jeopardize the United States’ credibility as the world’s leading defender of free expression as other democracies continue to falter.

Being critical of America, capitalism, and Christianity shouldn’t put you on the feds’ radar because all those viewpoints are protected speech. A federal investigation should only occur when there’s reasonable evidence that some person or group — regardless of their constitutionally protected beliefs and opinions — has crossed the line into criminality.

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Are Too Many Professors Excellent Sheep?

October 30, 2025 1 min read

Amna Khalid and Jeffrey Aaron Snyder
Banished, Substack

Excerpt: Amna & Jeff talk to Jon Zimmerman about why some profs are afraid to speak their minds.

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Harvard Salient’s Editor Says Conservative Student Magazine Will Not Obey Suspension by Alumni Board

October 29, 2025 1 min read

Samuel A. Church and Cam N. Srivastava, Crimson Staff Writers
Harvard Crimson

Excerpt: Harvard Salient editor-in-chief Richard Y. Rodgers ’28 announced on Tuesday that the conservative student magazine would remain active despite a Sunday statement from its board of directors suspending its operations pending a conduct investigation.

Rodgers wrote in an email to the Salient’s mailing list that the board’s decision to temporarily halt its operations was “an unauthorized usurpation of power by a small number of individuals acting outside the bounds of their authority.”

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Universities Can’t Pursue Truth Without Viewpoint Diversity

October 29, 2025 1 min read

John Tomasi and Jonathan Haidt
Inside Higher Ed

Excerpt: As the president of Heterodox Academy (Tomasi) and as co-founder of the organization (Haidt), we are delighted that the issue of viewpoint diversity in higher education is now being so widely discussed. We just wish the most prominent antagonists on the right and on the left understood why viewpoint diversity is essential to the mission of a university—and thus how it can, and can’t, be brought about.

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GOP Senator Accuses AAUP President of Exacerbating ‘Organizational Antisemitism’

October 28, 2025 1 min read

Emma Whitford
Inside Higher Ed

Excerpt: In a letter to American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten, Sen. Bill Cassidy, the Louisiana Republican who chairs the education committee, accused American Association of University Professors president and AFT vice president Todd Wolfson of promoting “organizational antisemitism” within the AAUP. 

Cassidy cited an August Inside Higher Ed interview with Wolfson in which the union leader stood against sending weapons to Israel, accused the Trump administration of weaponizing antisemitism for political gains and advocated for the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism, a definition of antisemitism that does not include anti-Zionism.

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