National Free Speech News & Commentary

Caitlin Flanagan
The Atlantic

Excerpt:  If you’ve taken a college tour lately, either as an applicant or as the parent of an applicant, you may have noticed that at some point—usually as you’re on the death march from the aquatic center to the natural-sciences complex—the tour guide will spin smartly on her heel, do the college-tour-guide thing of performatively walking backwards, and let you in on something very important. “What’s different about College X,” she’ll say confidently, “is that our professors don’t teach you what to think. They teach you how to think.”

Emma H. Haidar and Cam E. Kettles
The Harvard Crimson

Excerpt: Interim University President Alan M. Garber ’76 pledged to tackle “pernicious” antisemitism on Harvard’s campus, saying he is most concerned about self-censorship in the face of anti-Israel attacks in an interview Wednesday — his first since assuming office on Jan. 2.

Garber did not answer repeated questions about whether his administration would consider instituting a speech code for Harvard classrooms. But in a follow-up statement, Garber wrote that he did not support speech codes.

Randall L. Kennedy
The Harvard Crimson

Nearly forty years ago, then-University President Derek C. Bok wrote an open letter championing a libertarian ethos of free speech at Harvard that would satisfy even its most ardent defenders. His views, he noted, were “in keeping with the main lines of Constitutional thought. . . . Despite recognizing that Harvard is a private institution and thus outside the sweep of the First Amendment, Bok nevertheless maintained that Harvard should not “have less free speech than the surrounding society — or than a public university.” . . .  

The Harvard community, however, ought not be doctrinaire in its reliance on the First Amendment. Harvard should govern speech on campus according to a separate standard anchored solely by academic concerns . . . . For example, if Harvard were bound by the First Amendment, the University would be compelled to permit students to chant, in the middle of Harvard Yard, “no means yes, and yes means anal” or “send the Blacks back to Africa”or “exterminate the Jews!” — all phrases that, standing alone, are protected when uttered in a public space like Cambridge Common or the quad at the University of Massachusetts. . . . Ought Harvard be so permissive?

Jessica Blake
Inside Higher Ed

Excerpt: American University administrators have banned all indoor protests in a move they say is intended to promote inclusivity and signal a clear intolerance of antisemitism on campus.  

Sylvia Burwell, the university’s president, said in a Jan. 25 letter to the campus that the decision was made in response to “recent events and incidents on campus [that] have made Jewish students feel unsafe and unwelcome.” The protest ban comes on the heels of a complaint filed by multiple Jewish advocacy groups to the U.S. Education Department's Office for Civil Rights, asserting that the Washington, D.C., institution is a hostile environment for Jewish and Israeli students.

Heterodox Academy Podcast
John Tomasi & Steven Pinker

Excerpt: Are our higher education institutions still nurturing true
intellectual diversity? Our guest today is Steven Pinker, a cognitive
scientist at Harvard, and today, we'll be exploring the growing
concerns within higher ed that institutions are turning into echo
chambers, stifling dissent and censoring certain perspectives.

In this thought-provoking episode, we'll be discovering the challenges
to academic freedom in the era of cancel culture. We'll explore how
questioning a consensus can now come at a cost, impacting the pursuit
of truth within academic institutions. We'll also uncover the story of
the Council for Academic Freedom at Harvard, which was formed to
combat these challenges.

Megan Zahneis
Chronicle of Higher Education

Excerpt: Utah has become the sixth state to adopt legislation that limits diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts at public colleges, after Gov. Spencer J. Cox, a Republican, on Tuesday signed a sweeping measure into law. The bill passed by wide party-line margins in both the House and Senate, and earned Cox’s signature just two weeks after its introduction; that fast pace drew criticism last week from Utah’s top higher-education official.

The bill is the first targeting DEI to be signed into law this year, after seven bills in five states became law in 2023, according to The Chronicle’s tracker. At least 16 states will consider restrictions on campus DEI this year.