National Free Speech News & Commentary

Conor Friedersdorf
The Atlantic

Excerpt: Attacks on faculty rights are frequent in academia, where professors’ words are now policed by illiberal administrators, state legislators, and students. I’ve reported on related controversies in American higher education for more than 20 years. But I’ve never seen a policy that threatens academic freedom or First Amendment rights on a greater scale than what is now unfolding in this country’s largest system of higher education: California’s community colleges.

Frustratingly––even tragically––the same system is implementing new DEI rules, mandated by state bureaucrats, that trample on free speech while coercing faculty members on how to teach their subjects, which scholarly conclusions to reach, and even what political positions to advocate. Some faculty members say they feel like they must choose between their job and their conscience.

Editorial Board
Wall Street Journal

Excerpt: In the face of Hamas’s atrocities, some U.S. college administrators at first said little or issued equivocating mush, such as what Dartmouth College put out Tuesday in its “Statement on the Israel-Gaza War.” A notable exception: University of Florida President Ben Sasse.

Here’s what Mr. Sasse wrote Tuesday in an email addressed to “Jewish Gator Alums,” which deserves to be quoted at length:

“I will not tiptoe around this simple fact: What Hamas did is evil and there is no defense for terrorism. This shouldn’t be hard. Sadly, too many people in elite academia have been so weakened by their moral confusion that, when they see videos of raped women, hear of a beheaded baby, or learn of a grandmother murdered in her home, the first reaction of some is to ‘provide context’ and try to blame the raped women, beheaded baby, or the murdered grandmother. In other grotesque cases, they express simple support for the terrorists.

“This thinking isn’t just wrong, it’s sickening. It’s dehumanizing. It is beneath people called to educate our next generation of Americans. I am thankful to say I haven’t seen examples of that here at UF, either from our faculty or our student body. . . .

“In the coming days, it is possible that anti-Israel protests will come to UF’s campus. I have told our police chief and administration that this university always has two foundational commitments: We will protect our students and we will protect speech. This is always true: Our Constitution protects the rights of people to make abject idiots of themselves. . . .

“When evil raises its head, as it has in recent days, it is up to men and women of conscience and courage to draw strength from truth and commit ourselves to the work of building something better—to the work of pursuing justice and pursuing peace. That is what we aim to do through education, compassion, and truth here at the University of Florida.”

Maggie Hicks
Chronicle of Higher Education

Excerpt: On Tuesday afternoon a bright-red graphic popped up on a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill student group’s Instagram page. The post, by the campus’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, advertised a “Day of Resistance” protest on Thursday. Behind bold, capital lettering, a group of cartoon protesters held up peace signs and posters. A silhouette of a paraglider flew above.

Similar images appeared on several other organizations’ pages throughout the day next to statements reflecting the same sentiment — that deadly attacks by the Hamas militant group in Israel over the weekend had been justified and a direct result of the Israeli government’s oppression of people in occupied Palestinian territory. Those statements have been met with fierce criticism on social media calling on colleges to denounce the groups.

Eli Meyerhoff and Isaac Kamola
Academe Blog

Excerpt: Today, attacks on academic freedom originate from state houses, governors’ offices, partisan political organizations, think tanks, and online trolls. This multi-pronged attack on academic freedom requires a mass political—rather than a merely individual, institutional, or procedural—response.

We question whether the language of academic freedom provides the strongest framework for a successful mass defense against this political onslaught. We suggest that an alternative, complementary principle, “freedom to learn,” offers a more widely resonant rallying cry.

James Freeman
Wall Street Journal

Excerpt: Observing unhinged campus reactions to Saturday’s murderous barbarity, some commenters on social media have been recalling William F. Buckley, Jr.’s opinion that he would rather be governed by the first series of names in a telephone directory than by the faculty of Harvard. Certainly one must be extremely wary of consenting to be governed by Harvard students. But not all of their instructors would necessarily oppress us.

Jonathan Turley
Jonathan Turley’s Blog

Excerpt: Universities and colleges across the country have become embroiled in a debate over free speech in the aftermath of the massacre of Israelis by Hamas terrorists this week. Various student groups have expressed support for Hamas or their cause while condemning Israel. Black Lives Matter (BLM) chapters have even shown the image below of one of the terrorists who paraglided into Israel where hundreds of civilians were murdered, including babies.

Harvard has been a particular flashpoint over strident statements of condemnation of Israel immediately after the attack. The support has led to at least one firm rescinding an offer to a pro-Palestinian NYU law student as well as calls for universities to cut off support for student groups condemning Israel.