National Free Speech News & Commentary

Dear ACTA friend,

Since its founding, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) has advocated for strengthening civic education at America’s colleges and universities. Our democratic republic depends on an educated citizenry—the rising generation must have a robust understanding of our nation’s history and system of government.

Our country is facing a civic knowledge crisis, and with it, a crisis of civic order. ACTA’s recent survey, Losing America’s Memory 2.0, has brought to light some startling findings about the state of civic literacy among college students. Most students are unable to identify the speaker of the House of Representatives, term lengths for members of Congress, or the branch of government with the power to declare war.

Bret Stephens
New York Times

Excerpt: On its face, there’s nothing necessarily political about the mantra that the customer is always right. It can buck up the patience of an exasperated shopkeeper dealing with a finicky patron or push complacent manufacturers to think harder about evolving consumer tastes. It fosters a service culture that, as visitors to the United States often remark, is notable for its niceness.

Mark Moyar
Chronicle of Higher Education

Excerpt: Last year I visited Harvard at the invitation of two organizations in whose services I had labored as a student 30 years earlier: the Republican Club and the undergraduate conservative magazine The Harvard Salient. The Salient had recently adopted a policy of publishing articles under pseudonyms because of fears that naming the authors would result in damage to their grades, social lives, and careers.

In fact, no mobs materialized to bar my path. No leftists showed up to jeer my remarks on the finer points of history and politics. My hosts explained that the opposing side never showed up to hear conservative speakers. Prior interactions had led the young rightists to conclude that their left-leaning counterparts were so certain of their rectitude that they had no interest in contrary viewpoints.

Dissident Dialogues

Excerpt: Leading academics come together to discuss and debate whether Western universities can be saved from peril. With free speech on campus in jeopardy, and weekly Palestine protests following years of attacks on curriculum and the pulling down of statues. Can they be salvaged or do new universities need to be built?

Jennifer Kabbany
College Fix

Excerpt: A Bakersfield College professor who was investigated and disciplined after he questioned the use of grant money to fund social justice initiatives at his school has agreed to a $2.4 million settlement to resolve his lawsuit.

Matthew Garrett, formerly a tenured history professor at the California community college, will receive $2,245,480 divided into monthly payments for the next 20 years as well as an immediate one-time payment of $154,520 as “compensation for back wages and medical benefits since [his] dismissal,” according to the July 10 settlement agreement.

Rexton Laird
FIRE

Excerpt: Ahead of what could be another tumultuous year for free expression on college campuses, forthcoming FIRE/College Pulse survey data shows just a fraction of undergrads have a solid understanding of their own campus’s protest policies.

Conducted near the end of the Israeli-Palestinian campus protests, between May 17 and June 25, 2024, the survey sampled 3,803 undergraduates at 30 four-year colleges and universities in the U.S. Asked how aware they are of their college’s written speech policies on campus protest, almost half of students surveyed said they are either “not aware at all” (19%) or “not very aware” (29%). Only 19% of students — less than a fifth — responded they are “extremely” (6%) or “very”(13%) aware of the relevant policies.