National Free Speech News & Commentary

Joseph M. Knippenberg
James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal

Excerpt: Earlier this summer, Harvard dean Lawrence Bobo wrote an essay for the Harvard Crimson that provoked a chorus of criticism, much of it justified. Reflecting on the post-October 7 turmoil on his campus, which had led, among other things, to the resignation of President Claudine Gay, Bobo argued that faculty should be disciplined for airing the university’s dirty laundry in public.

I would like to approach Bobo’s argument by focusing on the goal that he and his critics share: the institutional independence of the university as a knowledge-seeking enterprise.

Hans Bader
Minding the Campus

Excerpt: If a university is ordered by the government to investigate each instance of speech that is bigoted to determine if it cumulatively contributed to a “hostile environment” for some minority group, it will have a powerful incentive to adopt a “zero tolerance” policy for offensive speech, to avoid the time and expense of constant investigations, and avoid potential liability for a “hostile environment.” That’s true even if the speech is political or religious, such as advocating the elimination of Israel or Palestinian self-rule or questioning Jewish, Arab, or Middle Eastern practices.

Yet, that burdensome duty to censor is more or less what the Biden administration told universities to do in recent Title VI and Title IX investigations, such as in a press release about an investigation of Drexel University for anti-Semitism, and an accompanying letter resolving the Title VI investigation.

Ryan Quinn
Inside Higher Ed

Excerpt: The chancellor of Florida’s state university system has launched a review of public university courses for “antisemitism or anti-Israeli bias” following controversy this summer over a textbook and quiz questions allegedly used at Florida International University.

Randy Fine, a Republican member of the Florida House, who is Jewish and who served alongside the chancellor and calls him a friend, said the statewide review “absolutely” came from an incident at Florida International University this summer. “When we learned that Florida universities were using a factually inaccurate, openly antisemitic textbook, we realized there was a problem that had to be addressed,” Fine told Inside Higher Ed Thursday.

Emma Camp
Reason Magazine

Excerpt: Last week, officials ordered several public universities in Florida to examine courses for "antisemitism or anti-Israeli bias," reported The Chronicle.

The directive, issued on Friday, ordered the leaders of 12 public universities in the State University System of Florida to provide the system's board of governors with a list of "related instructional materials" for any course whose description or syllabus contains the keywords Israel, Israeli, Palestine, Palestinian, Middle East, Zionism, Zionist, Judaism, Jewish, and Jews.

John Warner
Inside Higher Ed

Excerpt: There are a number of recent stories about political acts that are direct attacks on how higher ed institutions operate that have me worried because they lack contemporary precedent.

Consider the gap between a board dedicated to overseeing the health and well-being of the institution and one specifically dedicated to “controlling” the institution, apparently on behalf of the state’s chief executive. Oversight and control are two very different things.

Yascha Mounk
Yascha Mounk Substack

Excerpt: Plenty of arguments against free speech lack any credible pretense of sophistication. They simply jump from the undoubted fact that many people say dumb or disgusting things on the internet to the understandable, if wrong-headed, wish that anybody who says such things should be made to shut up. But those who argue for restrictions on free speech with an ounce of sophistication have increasingly begun to invoke an idea by a philosopher whose work they otherwise studiously ignore: Karl Popper and his “paradox of tolerance.”