National Free Speech News & Commentary

Jessica Blake
Inside Higher Ed

Excerpt: Louisiana governor Jeff Landry signed a bill into law Wednesday that grants him new powers to directly appoint board chairs at the state’s public colleges and universities. Landry, a Republican, then immediately ousted University of Louisiana System board chair Jimmy Clarke and re-appointed Mark Romero, who held the role under previous governor John Bel Edwards in 2019.

The bill landed on Landry’s desk on May 31 after flying through the state legislature with strong Republican support. Sponsored by Republican senator Valarie Hodges, the controversial bill reflects a growing push from conservative lawmakers to exercise greater influence in higher education governance.

Ryan Quinn
Inside Higher Ed

Excerpt: On Monday morning, the student-edited Columbia Law Review published its latest issue online. Hours later, the website became a blank white space with a one-line note saying, “Website is under maintenance.”

The issue had contained an article by Rabea Eghbariah, the same Palestinian Harvard University law degree candidate who had a different piece rejected by the Harvard Law Review in November after an unusual editorial intervention. Unlike what happened at Harvard, Eghbariah received the Columbia Law Review’s imprimatur for this new article and saw it published. But not for long. On Monday morning—seven hours after the article was published, according to one outgoing student editor, Erika Lopez—the Review’s Board of Directors, which includes the law school’s dean and other faculty members and alumni, took down the Review’s entire website due to Eghbariah's article.

Benjamin Mazer
The Atlantic

Excerpt: “People will die if doctors misdiagnose patients.” This is true as far as it goes. But the recent news that prompted Elon Musk to share this observation on X was not precisely about medical errors. It was about what he might call the “woke mind virus.” A story by Aaron Sibarium in The Washington Free Beacon had revealed complaints that UCLA’s medical school was admitting applicants partly based on race—a practice that has long been outlawed in California public schools. And this process wasn’t just discriminatory, the story argued; it was potentially disastrous for the public.

Andrew Manuel Crespo and Kirsten Weld
Chronicle of Higher Education

Excerpt: Two weeks ago, roughly sixteen hours before commencement exercises at Harvard University were set to begin, the institution’s governing board, known as the Harvard Corporation, rejected the list of undergraduate degree candidates put forward by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. In its place, the corporation adopted a list that omitted thirteen graduating seniors. Each of those students had met all the academic requirements to graduate. But a few weeks earlier, they had also each participated in a pro-Palestine encampment in Harvard Yard. For that reason, the corporation refused to grant them the degrees their teachers had voted to confer.

Terry Chea and Olga R. Rodriguez
Associated Press

Excerpt: Police arrested 13 people at Stanford University after pro-Palestinian demonstrators occupied the school president and provost’s offices early Wednesday, causing what officials described as “extensive” vandalism inside and outside the building.

Stanford students who participated in Wednesday’s protest would be immediately suspended, and any seniors would not be allowed to graduate, university President Richard Saller and Provost Jenny Martinez said in a joint statement.

Nadine Strossen
Persuasion

Excerpt: The current Supreme Court term includes a cluster of cases that could well shape the future of online free speech. These cases invite the Court to determine the power of both government officials and social media platforms concerning “content moderation” policies, which in turn define platform users’ speech rights.

Given the unparalleled importance of these platforms for all manner of communication—personal, professional, and political—meaningful free speech rights depend on the platforms’ policies. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that the Court’s rulings over the next weeks may well determine the shape of speech online for years to come.