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Commentary: A Georgia teacher’s plight exposes the essence of anti-woke MAGA fury

July 05, 2023

By Greg Sargent and Paul Waldman
The Washington Post

Excerpt: At first glance, the plight of Katherine Rinderle, a fifth-grade teacher in Georgia, might seem confusing. Rinderle faces likely termination by the Cobb County School District for reading aloud a children’s book that touches on gender identity. Yet she is charged in part with violating policy related to a state law banning “divisive concepts” about race, not gender.

Commentary: The problem on campus is not an excess of liberalism

June 27, 2023

Miles Smith
Washington Examiner

Excerpt: For the past half-century, college life in the U.S. has become less free for students and professors. Faculty and staff have become more socially sectarian. Authentic debate has been stultified. Requirements to recite the new educational litany created by post-liberals have been enacted

University at Buffalo Clubs Caught in Free Speech Crossfire

June 22, 2023

Johanna Alonso

Inside Higher Ed

Excerpt: When Suha Chowdhury started a chapter of the humanitarian aid organization Islamic Relief at the University at Buffalo, she envisioned joining with her peers to fundraise for global causes and help Buffalo-area nonprofits—all with the support of her university.

Commentary: Students Deserve Institutional Neutrality from Universities | Opinion

June 26, 2023

Matthew Wilson

Newsweek

Excerpt: Imagine walking into your first day of class and finding out that your beliefs have been officially condemned by the academic department offering the course. Pick the hot-button topic: abortion, affirmative action, marriage and sexual morality, transgender identity, Israel—university authorities have publicly decreed that your particular viewpoint is incompatible with the department's values.

Commentary: A Tennessee teacher planned a Mother’s Day class. Then came the MAGA rage

May 09, 2023

By Greg Sargent
The Washington Post

Excerpt: By now, it’s well understood that the right’s efforts to restrict classroom discussion are all about marginalizing LGBTQ people under the guise of protecting children. But they also harbor a less obvious aim: to convince parents that kids are under threat in the first place. That mild-mannered teacher over there? She just might be scheming to pervert, indoctrinate and snatch away childhood innocence.

The Book-Bans Debate Has Finally Reached a Turning Point

May 10, 2023

By Ronald Brownstein
The Atlantic

Excerpt: Across multiple fronts, Democrats and their allies are stiffening their resistance to a surge of Republican-led book bans.

Medical School Cancels Forum Expected to Criticize Diversity Efforts

May 11, 2023

By Scott Jaschik
Inside Higher Ed

Excerpt: The Medical College of Wisconsin cancelled a forum on the “uses and abuses” of diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in medicine and science after students and faculty members complained that the forum was not based on science, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.

The Student Protesters Were Arrested. The Man Who Got Violent in the Parking Lot Wasn’t.

May 13, 2023

By Nicole Carr
ProPublica

Excerpt: When one police officer heard the radio call for backup at a high school campus outside Little Rock, Arkansas, he first thought there’d been a problem at a football game. The indecipherable chanting in the background sounded like roars from the bleachers. But it turned out that the rhythmic rallying call that November night last year was coming from the lobby outside a school board meeting.

Commentary: Collective Guilt is the Most Indefensible Form of Cancel Culture

May 17, 2023

By Yascha Mounk
Persuasion, Substack

Excerpt: Last weekend, PEN America—which is dedicated to defending and promoting free expression around the globe—canceled a panel in which dissident writers, including Russian journalists who have long been deeply critical of Putin’s regime, were going to present their work.

In this small Illinois town, beware the book police

May 19, 2023

By Jordan Howell
Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression

Excerpt: An Illinois teacher is out of a job after a group of parents accused her of “child grooming” for including an LGBTQ-themed book in a reading assignment for eighth grade students in the town of Heyworth. The book is one of nearly a hundred of all different subjects and themes provided to students back in March as part of the assignment, and Heyworth Chief of Police Michael Geriets seized dozens of books during his sprawling, weeks-long investigation.

University at Buffalo tramples First Amendment, threatens to derecognize dozens of student groups for affiliating with outside organizations

May 22, 2023

By Zach Greenburg
Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression

Excerpt: Cold winters, hot wings, and “a place where you’ll make a real difference.” That’s what University at Buffalo offers its students — but not those who want to pursue their passions by participating in certain student groups. A new student government policy threatens to derecognize dozens of student groups solely for their affiliation with outside organizations. FIRE calls on the university to walk back this egregious violation of students’ First Amendment right to freedom of association.

Commentary: To Hell With the Universities

May 28, 2023

By John Jiang
American Spectator

Excerpt: Affirmative action in higher education is set to face the judgment of the Supreme Court. The moment is quietly exhilarating. This is an injustice that has been hoisted upon so many, for so long, and with the patronage of so many powerful institutions that it seemed perhaps too big and too heavy to ever remove. Yet the same was true of Roe v. Wade, and now Roe v. Wade is gone.

Commentary: Aiming for a neutral pH in STEM

May 29, 2023

By Sebastian Kozuch
Heterodox STEM

Excerpt: For reference, I am a half Argentinian - half Israeli chemist; I think of myself as a center-left liberal both in an economic and political sense; I hate fascists and racists, and I believe that STEM direly needs more diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Having said that, I would like to tell you a small story from a chemical laboratory that can serve as a useful analogy for the point I want to raise. Please bear with me.

UVa Board of Visitors floats tracking student, faculty political ideology

June 03, 2023

By Sydney Shuler
Daily Progress

Excerpt: The University of Virginia already tracks the gender and race of its students, but some of the newest members on the school’s governing body want to know why it isn’t tracking their religious and political affiliations as well.

Mayo Clinic medical college to doctor: Sit down and shut up

June 07, 2023

By Zach Greenberg
Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression

Excerpt: A college suspends a professor for not adhering to “prescribed messaging,” imposes a gag order on him, and demands he say only what it tells him to say or nothing at all. That may sound like a dystopian novel, but it’s actually happening at Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science — an American institution of higher education that promises faculty free speech, but apparently has no idea what that means.

Commentary: I Paid for Free Speech at Arizona State

June 19, 2023

By Ann Atkinson
Wall Street Journal

Excerpt: Beneath ASU’s written commitment to intellectual diversity lies a deep hostility toward divergent views. The latest trouble started in February when the Lewis Center hosted Robert Kiyosaki, Dennis Prager and Charlie Kirk for an event on “Health, Wealth, and Happiness.” This nonpartisan program was part of a popular speaker series focused on connecting students with professionals who can offer career and life advice.

AFA Files Amicus Brief on Florida’s “Stop WOKE Act”

June 20, 2023

By Academic Freedom Alliance Press Release

Excerpt: The Academic Freedom Alliance (AFA) today filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit as it considers Pernell v. Lamb, a case against Florida’s “Stop W.O.K.E. Act.” The AFA’s brief argues that Subsection 4 of the Act violates the First Amendment to the Constitution by preventing faculty from discussing “a wide range of concepts that appear in debates at the heart of many university courses.” The case is on appeal before the 11th Circuit, which has upheld a lower court’s injunction against the Act pending a final decision.

Familiar campus expansion and diversity themes, no affirmative action details in President Eisgruber’s annual address

May 29, 2023

By Isabel Yip
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: With a looming Supreme Court decision that experts predict will strike down affirmative action, University President Christopher L. Eisgruber ’83 maintained that the University will find ways to achieve a diverse campus in an annual address to alumni delivered during Reunions.

Survey: Roughly Three-Fourths of Princeton Students Believe Shouting Down Speakers is Acceptable

June 10, 2023

By Jonathan Turley
Jonathan Turley's Blog

Excerpt: A new survey by Princetonians for Free Speech shows that roughly three-fourths of students believe that it is acceptable to shout down a speaker. The distressing results are consistent with other studies and surveys that have been discussed on this blog. Of course, some faculty maintain that it is better to “shoot down rather than shout down” conservatives.

‘Rantings of a demagogue’: Parents angered by Princeton president’s graduation address

June 12, 2023

Abigail Anthony
The College Fix
Jun 12, 2023

Excerpt: A large contingent of parents of graduating seniors who sat through Princeton University President Christopher Eisgruber’s recent commencement address described it as hypocritical and a “woke sermon” in interviews with The College Fix.

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2025 Student Free Speech Survey