National Free Speech News & Commentary

Jonathan Zimmerman
Philadelphia Inquirer

Excerpt: How should schools regulate what students post on the internet?
I don’t know. But here’s what I do know: We’ll never craft good policies around online student speech unless we listen to what students have to say.

That’s been the missing voice in the controversy in Great Valley, a Chester County school district where middle school students made 22 TikTok accounts impersonating their teachers. Some of the fake videos were truly horrible, casting the teachers as pedophiles or depicting them in sexual encounters with each other.

Steven Porter
Boston Globe

Excerpt: Prosecutors are pressing forward with formal criminal charges against most of the 12 people who were arrested when pro-Palestinian demonstrators attempted to establish an encampment May 1 at the University of New Hampshire.

A prosecutor with the UNH Police Department filed formal complaints Wednesday against eight defendants, including six who were UNH students at the time of their arrest, alleging they committed misdemeanor trespassing and disorderly conduct by refusing to comply with a dispersal order, according to court records.

Greg Lukianoff
The Eternally Radical Idea, Substack

Excerpt: the line between these two sides of the argument can’t be so clear-cut, can it? Surely, at least some of the people who argue that words are violence have in fact been punched in the face. So why would they make the argument anyway?

I fear the answer is simple: It's a tactical advantage when facing any speaker you hate. Equating words and violence is a rhetorical escalation designed to protect an all-too-human preference which Nat Hentoff, a dearly departed friend and a great defender of freedom of speech in the 20th century, used to call “Free speech for me, but not for thee.”

Eric Kelderman
Chronicle of Higher Education

Excerpt: Ben Sasse’s appointment as president of the University of Florida in late 2022 was hailed by his supporters as an opportunity to remake a flagship institution. Less than two years later, he is stepping down before having time to meaningfully influence the university’s direction.

Sasse announced his resignation late on Thursday with a social-media post on X (formerly Twitter) explaining that he needed to spend more time helping his wife, Melissa, deal with the ongoing effects of an aneurysm she suffered in 2007.

Ryan Quinn
Inside Higher Ed

Excerpt: After months of delaying a planned vote on the issue, the University of California’s Board of Regents voted 13 to 1 Thursday to prohibit academic departments and other academic units from posting political statements on their website homepages.

The ban comes after some UC departments posted statements supporting Palestinians. Josiah Beharry, the student member on the board, was the only no vote.

Katherine Knott
Inside Higher Ed

Excerpt: For America’s colleges and universities and the students they serve, the four years of Donald Trump’s first term as president were fraught, defined by threats to international students, allegations of “radical left indoctrination,” free speech controversies and far-reaching attacks on fundamental institutional values such as diversity.

Now, Trump is back and seeking another four years in the White House, and higher education could be in for greater scrutiny and heightened pressure if he wins. Higher education wasn’t high on Trump’s priority list the first time around, but an increasing anti–higher education sentiment among Republicans and sectors of the public has shifted the political winds. That could open the door to more radical policy options.