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Surina Venkat
The Hill
Excerpt: The nation’s top schools have ramped up their spending on lobbying the federal government this year amid President Trump’s crackdown on higher education, disclosures filed last week show.
Twenty-four top universities and one of the nation’s largest college systems have already spent around $24 million lobbying Washington this year, more than double what they spent during the same time period last year, according to federal disclosures.
Nate Honeycutt
Expression, FIRE
Excerpt: When a scholar is targeted for their expression, the story rarely ends when the headlines fade. The formal investigations wrap up and the social media outrage may die down, but for many, the experience marks a permanent shift in how they think, speak, and interact with others in public. Such cases have profound implications for academic freedom and the state of campus free speech in higher education.
According to FIRE’s Sanctioned Scholars report, nearly three-quarters of the scholars we asked said they would not change anything they said or did that led to being targeted. But many also said that, in other ways, they are now altering their speech.
Len Gutkin
Chronicle of Higher Education
Excerpt: Last week, I wrote about the most recent dust-up between the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), two organizations that understand their shared commitment to academic freedom in somewhat different ways. The inciting incident was a post on X in which the AAUP’s official account responded to charges of liberal bias in academe by insisting that “fascism generally doesn’t do great under peer review.”
Michael Hurley
FIRE
Excerpt: Over the past several years, some politicians have tried to ban or limit discussion of controversial ideas in higher education, particularly those related to critical race theory, gender identity, and diversity, equity, and inclusion. FIRE has been on the front lines of this fight, opposing bills that target classroom speech and challenging those that become law.
Perhaps in part because of this roadblock, some actors have taken a more indirect approach to removing disfavored ideas from the classroom: a mix of “anti-woke” laws and cancel culture designed to intimidate schools into doing what the state cannot do directly.
Eric Kelderman
Chronicle of Higher Education
Excerpt: With federal funding as its leverage, the Trump administration has mounted a sustained campaign to give the federal government greater oversight of higher education. By a wide margin, the public rejects that effort — including the White House’s most recent foray, its proposed “compact” for higher education.
Angel Eduardo
FIRE
Excerpt: In August, FIRE sued Secretary of State Marco Rubio for violating the First Amendment. Since March, Rubio and the Trump administration had been detaining and attempting to deport legally present noncitizens for protected speech — including writing op-eds and attending protests — because they disliked that speech.
This, as FIRE has argued, is unconstitutional. Noncitizens in the United States have First Amendment rights, and Rubio’s use of these provisions not only violates those rights, but also showcases why the two provisions are unconstitutional and must be struck down to the extent they allow adverse immigration action based on protected speech.
