National Free Speech News & Commentary

Academic Freedom Alliance

Excerpt: Since the attack on civilians in Israel on October 7, 2023, American college campuses have been the scene of political rallies, protests, and political statements coming from differing perspectives. The Academic Freedom Alliance takes no position on the politics of the Middle East or attempts to adjudicate competing claims. The AFA does, however, have a substantial interest in how the discussion of those events is conducted and regulated on American college campuses. Universities are now under extraordinary
pressure to police the speech and beliefs of members of the campus community. It is
essential that universities resist the pressure to do so.

Bari Weiss
The Free Press, Substack

Excerpt: What is happening today on our college campuses—the places where our future leaders are nurtured, but more often pampered, pandered to, insulated, and infantilized—is not new. Since the very first days of The Free Press, we have been reporting on it.

But the need to restore wisdom, open inquiry, and common sense to our universities has never been more urgent than at this moment.  That’s why we’re sponsoring 1,000 paid yearlong subscriptions to The Free Press. And every college administrator in the country who wants one is eligible.

Freddie DeBoer
Substack

Excerpt: There was an essay version of this, but honestly I don’t think any essay writing is necessary - the systematic silencing of Palestinian and Palestine-supporting voices is happening, no one is even pretending that it’s not happening, and it’s a direct threat to the basic principles of free expression that are supposed to apply to everyone and every topic, no matter what.

Ruby Cramer
Washington Post

Excerpt: It was her last Monday morning in the library, and when Tania Galiñanes walked into her office and saw another box, she told herself that this would be the last one.

Inside were books. She didn’t know how many, or what they were, only that she would need to review each one by hand for age-appropriate material and sexual content as defined by Florida law, just as she’d been doing for months now with the 11,600 books on the shelves outside her door at Tohopekaliga High School. Last box, and then after this week, she would no longer be a librarian at all.

Jonathan Sumption
Unherd

Excerpt: Freedom of expression is probably the most widely acknowledged human right in the world. Lip service is paid to it even in totalitarian states. Freedom of expression is not worth much in Russia or North Korea, but their constitutions guarantee it in very similar terms as the United Nations. And yet, it is today under greater threat than any other human right. This is happening even, perhaps especially, in liberal democracies. How are we to explain this paradox?

Nell Gluckman
Chronicle of Higher Education

Excerpt: When Indiana’s abortion ban took effect, in the fall of 2022, Tamara Kay, a tenured professor in the University of Notre Dame’s Keough School of Global Affairs, tweeted that she was prepared to help students get access to health care. She hung a sign on her office door with her personal email address and a similar message.

About a month later, The Irish Rover, a student publication that says its mission is to uphold Notre Dame’s Roman Catholic identity, published an article about Kay titled “Keough School Professor Offers Abortion Access to Students.” A subhead read: “Abortion assistance offered to students despite IN law, ND policy.” In the days before the Rover article appeared, a business-school professor texted a student reporter that “there needs to be a coordinated assault on the Tamara Kay issue.”