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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.

Nick Gillespie
Reason Magazine

Excerpt: Nick Gillespie speaks with Dr. Wolf von Laer of Students for Liberty, and Sean Themea of Young Americans for Liberty about how campus activism may change after the murder of Charlie Kirk. They discuss how the tragedy has affected their organizations, what it means for the future of student organizing, and how libertarian ideas about free expression and individual rights fit in today's campus climates.

Kathryn Palmer
Inside Higher Ed

Excerpt: For months, East Tennessee State University’s art museum displayed without issue a provocative piece of art depicting a conservative politician as a fascist. But in the last two weeks, the exhibit—which closed as scheduled on Dec. 6—became mired in controversy after Republican lawmakers took note and began calling for its removal in late November.

In response, on Dec. 2, ETSU’s Reece Museum introduced a content warning and started requiring viewers to sign a waiver before entering the exhibit, “Evolution” by Joel Gibbs, which shows U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson in front of swastikas morphing into crosses. The move drew the ire of free speech groups.

Robert Shibley
FIRE

Excerpt: This election season, Pennsylvania State University appears to be unleashing its own October Surprise — against its students. In a brazen display of ignorance of (or disdain for) long-settled law, Penn State this semester has trampled over the rights of student journalists and other students registering their classmates to vote. There are times in FIRE’s case work where we can understand the flawed logic that leads an administrator to break the law, but there is no excusing or justifying what has happened on the Penn State campus over the past few weeks.

Kate Hidalgo Bellows and Jasper Smith
Chronicle of Higher Education

Excerpt: Faculty members at Columbia University say they disagree with a pro-Palestinian student group’s recent endorsement of violence, but some support the group’s right to express that sentiment.

On October 8, Columbia University Apartheid Divest — or CUAD — revoked an apology it made in the spring on behalf of a student activist who posted a video of himself saying “Zionists don’t deserve to live” and “Be grateful that I’m not just going out and murdering Zionists.” The group, an unrecognized coalition of student organizations, said in last week’s statement that the apology was written by several organizers, not the student, and did not represent the group’s values.

Ryan Quinn
Inside Higher Ed

Excerpt: After months of delaying a planned vote on the issue, the University of California’s Board of Regents voted 13 to 1 Thursday to prohibit academic departments and other academic units from posting political statements on their website homepages.

The ban comes after some UC departments posted statements supporting Palestinians. Josiah Beharry, the student member on the board, was the only no vote.

Jessie Appleby
Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression

Excerpt: The University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents announced in late December that it voted unanimously to terminate long-time chancellor of the UW-La Crosse campus, Joe Gow, after discovering his involvement in the adult film industry.

In short, while the First Amendment may indeed protect Gow’s continued employment as a faculty member with UW, the university will likely cite grounds for terminating his position as chancellor around the terms of his appointment and the high-ranking and public-facing nature of the position.

Michael Hurley 
FIRE

Excerpt: Over the past several years, some politicians have tried to ban or limit discussion of controversial ideas in higher education, particularly those related to critical race theory, gender identity, and diversity, equity, and inclusion. FIRE has been on the front lines of this fight, opposing bills that target classroom speech and challenging those that become law. 

Perhaps in part because of this roadblock, some actors have taken a more indirect approach to removing disfavored ideas from the classroom: a mix of “anti-woke” laws and cancel culture designed to intimidate schools into doing what the state cannot do directly.

Angel Eduardo

FIRE

 

Excerpt: If you’re a believer in free speech, the past two weeks have been one of the longest years of your life. In fact, this might have been the worst fortnight for free expression in recent memory.

 

The difference between words and violence – and the civilizational importance of free speech – couldn’t have been more stark in that moment. No matter how hurtful, hateful or wrong, there is no comparing words to a bullet. To preserve that distinction, we must have the highest possible tolerance for even the ugliest speech. But that notion has landed on largely deaf ears, because what followed was a cacophony of cancellations.

Jonathan Turley 
Jonathan Turley’s Blog

Excerpt: Three-fourths of Princeton students told one survey that they believed it was appropriate to shout down or deplatform speakers with opposing views.  That mistaken view of shout-downs as a form of free speech is obviously still prevalent on campus after a group of protesters stopped a discussion with former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. The question is whether Princeton will do anything about it or whether, when it comes to free speech, it will prove to be a mere paper tiger.

Princetonians for Free Speech have struggled to restore free speech on campus and they have had some success. However, this is an obvious test of that commitment. While some protesters wore masks, most did not. Any students who went inside the event to prevent Bennett from being heard should be suspended. Any faculty involved in such action should be terminated.

Julie Bonette
Princeton Alumni Weekly

Excerpt: Thirteen pro-Palestinian protesters are set to head to trial to face trespassing charges in municipal court on April 14, almost exactly one year after occupying Clio Hall last spring.

The trial, which is expected to last three days, was scheduled at a virtual hearing on Jan. 14, after it became clear that the parties could not agree on a proposed plea deal.

Zach Montague
New York Times

Excerpt: With a new academic year well underway, more than 60 colleges and universities are still under federal investigation over antisemitic and Islamophobic incidents during the campus protests that swept the United States after the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel, according to the Department of Education.

Hope Perry
Princeton Alumni Weekly

Excerpt: Stickers and flyers with hate messages have been found on campus in recent weeks, prompting the University to open investigations and remind the campus community of its role in addressing harassment.

Princeton Public Safety opened an investigation into a bias incident against Palestinians in early September when about 30 flyers printed with the phrases “Nuke Gaza” and “Kill Roaches” were found on a walkway near Spelman Hall. Several weeks later, on Sept. 28, multiple stickers were found scattered across campus on stop signs and bulletin boards with anti-Israel messages, including “Death to ‘Israel’” and “Tel-Aviv [sic] will Burn.”

Conor Friedersdorf
The Atlantic

Excerpt: This semester, student protesters opposed to Israel’s war in Gaza have already defaced a statue at Columbia, vandalized an administration building at Cornell, and blocked access to a convocation at Pomona College. Whether they will return to the tactic of erecting protest encampments, as happened on nearly 100 campuses last spring, is uncertain.

Francesca Block
The Free Press

Excerpt: The allegations were shocking. Fraternity brothers had been accused of beating new members with paddles, burning cigarettes into their skin, forcing them to lie on beds of nails, spitting on them, and commanding them to drink urine. University of Maryland administrators were alarmed by the claims, which appeared in their inboxes in late February, coming from at least two anonymous accounts. They decided to act fast.

But by the end of the school year in June, 35 Greek organizations out of the 37 on campus were cleared of all wrongdoing. The Maryland case, sources told me, reveals a double standard on American campuses today: students who openly break the law—including trespassing, breaking and entering, and harassing their fellow students—are given a pass when they’re committing crimes in the name of activism, while students suspected of behaving badly in their social lives are treated like villains.

PEN America Press Release

Excerpt: We continue to be deeply alarmed by the decision of campus administrators across the country to deploy the police to detain, arrest, and remove peaceful student protesters. The use of excessive force against students and faculty on multiple occasions is shocking and unacceptable.
Engaging police to deal with peaceful protests represents an escalation that is inimical to the exercise of free expression and to a learning environment, and further raises the risk of use of excessive force; except in extreme cases, the use of outside police against student protesters is the wrong decision and only serves to ratchet up tensions.

George Packer
The Atlantic

Excerpt: Fifty-six years ago this week, at the height of the Vietnam War, Columbia University students occupied half a dozen campus buildings and made two principal demands of the university: stop funding military research, and cancel plans to build a gym in a nearby Black neighborhood. After a week of futile negotiations, Columbia called in New York City police to clear the occupation.

Yolanda Wang, Yurii Stasiuk, and Tristan Hernandez
Yale Daily News

Excerpt: Early Saturday morning, the Yale Corporation — the University’s highest governing body, which includes 16 trustees as well as University President Peter Salovey — convened at the Greenberg Conference Center for their last meeting before the summer recess.

The Yale Corporation meeting comes the morning after pro-divestment protesters stayed overnight on Beinecke Plaza with an encampment of more than 25 tents. The encampment followed a mass protest during Salovey’s farewell dinner in the Schwarzman Center last night, and a week-long effort by various students and groups to occupy the plaza. The Corporation — which is in charge of the search for Yale’s 24th president — is also in the eighth month of its search but has not shared a timeline for when the decision will be made. Salovey is set to step down on June 30.

Jonathan Turley
Jonathan Turley’s Blog

Excerpt: University of Maryland President Darryll Pines has joined the ignoble line of educators and administrators enabling the growing anti-free speech movement on our campuses. Pines has defended the shouting down of Rep. Jamie Raskin (D., Md). as exercising free speech as hecklers. He is dead wrong and the Board of Directors should address his inimical view of free speech in higher education.

As for Raskin, it is an ironic but telling moment from a member of Congress who has supported censorship and consistently opposed efforts to investigate the silencing of those with opposing views.

Johanna Alonso
Inside Higher Ed

Excerpt: Pro-Palestinian protesters interrupted a speech by Maryland Congressman Jamie Raskin, a Democrat, at the University of Maryland on Thursday, the Capital News Service reported.

The protesters shouted that Raskin was “complicit in genocide,” to which he responded that he has advocated for hostages to be freed and for a ceasefire. Raskin was unable to continue his planned speech on democracy as the protesters continued heckling him and arguing with audience members. But he said he was willing to take questions, which led to further discussion about Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza. University President Darryll Pines eventually stepped in to end the lecture early.

Randall L. Kennedy
The Harvard Crimson

Excerpt: The scenario is familiar: A university invites a speaker to campus that outrages some sector of the community. Perhaps the guest is Ann Coulter, Angela Davis, or Mohammed El-Kurd. Angered or disappointed, protestors demand that the invitation be withdrawn.

Many free speech advocates categorically denounce campaigns to disinvite speakers, pointing to such protests as evidence of moral and intellectual rot. They decry even more harshly authorities that rescind invitations, portraying them as shameful cowards. It’s important that universities host a diversity of perspectives. But, as a strong supporter of free speech myself, I have to say: The reflexive, absolutist scorn for these campaigns ought to be reconsidered.

Stella Lee and Annalisa Fang
Daily Pennsylvanian

Excerpt: Penn Political Union hosted a discussion with political science professor Ian Lustick discussing free speech and the criteria for guest speakers in a university setting.

Penn Political Union president and College sophomore Mia Antonacci moderated the event, focusing on the question of whether it is “appropriate to prohibit individuals from speaking at a university based on the falsehood of their statements.” Around 30 people attended the discussion on Feb. 7, which took place at the Perelman Center for Political Science and Economics.

Evan Mandery
Politico

Excerpt: [Greg] Lukianoff’s philosophy — civil libertarianism — is arguably the very core of the American project. And yet it now faces intense threats from the left and the right, which Lukianoff chronicles in a new book on cancel culture. The book also offers some prescriptions, a new approach to politics and culture that could help bridge our poisonous divide, if given the chance.

Lukianoff doesn’t have all the answers, but as he recounted his own struggles with severe depression, it’s clear that his approach is a healing one. Whether Americans are willing to listen — and whether civil libertarianism can survive — is far less certain.

Ryan Quinn
Inside Higher Ed

Excerpt: At the American Anthropological Association’s major annual meeting next month, five women from four countries were set to discuss gender and sex—and to criticize other academics’ views on these topics.

They titled this serious session something cheeky, with a Salt-N-Pepa song reference: “Let’s Talk About Sex, Baby: Why biological sex remains a necessary analytic category in anthropology.” The association’s executive board has now canceled the panel, releasing a statement Thursday titled “No Place For Transphobia in Anthropology.” Ramona Perez, the association’s president, explained that after the preliminary program was published online Aug. 1, showing the panelists’ names, anthropologists from multiple fields raised concern.

Kristen Shahverdian, Samantha LaFrance
PEN America

Excerpt: Earlier this month, when disability activist Alice Wong submitted her remarks for a virtual talk at Boston University’s School of Public Health, the school made an unusual request: to change what she planned to say.

Because she cannot speak, Wong requires questions in advance of public appearances. This allows her to type answers ahead of time to more efficiently use a text-to-speech app. Days before the scheduled talk, a school official wrote to Wong, asking that she change “F U Dr. Fauci” to “I disagree with Dr. Fauci” and to remove the names of the other officials. In doing so, the school inadvertently transformed a simple accessibility request into an opportunity to muffle the activist’s speech.

Emma Camp
Reason Magazine
 
Excerpt: According to a new survey, only one-third of college students say it's never acceptable to shout down a controversial campus speaker. And one-quarter think using violence can be acceptable in at least some circumstances to stop someone from speaking on campus.

The highest-ranked schools consistently had "green" speech code ratings—a measure FIRE uses to indicate that a school's official policies do not trample student and faculty First Amendment rights—and administrations that consistently defended controversial speech. However, many of these same schools seem to have student bodies that aren't quite so tolerant.

Press Release
Cornell Free Speech Alliance

Today, the Cornell Free Speech Alliance, a nonprofit and nonpartisan coalition of Cornell alumni, faculty, and students, sent a report featuring 20 policy recommendations to Cornell University leaders intended to restore open inquiry and academic freedom on campus. The recommendations are the culmination of nearly two years of research and dialogue that began in response to an increasingly degraded free speech environment at the University. The transmittal of the recommendations coincides with the beginning of Cornell’s free expression themed 2023-2024 academic year, which many consider to be an empty and insincere attempt by university leaders to deflect pressure over free speech concerns.

By Brandon Waltens
Texas Scorecard

Excerpt: After public backlash, Texas Tech University has walked back plans to offer a class on ”Witches, Bruxas, & Black Magic” this fall. As reported by Texas Scorecard earlier this week, the course was described as introducing the “study of beliefs and practices, past and present, associated with magic, witchcraft, spirituality, magic realism, and religion.”

Jerry A. Coyne
Why Evolution is True

Excerpt: Well, Princeton, via its president Christopher Eisgruber, has wussed out of adopting a crucial plank in a university free-speech platform: institutional neutrality. The man simply can’t hold back his ideological or political opinions, even if they chill the speech of faculty and students.

Foundation for Individual Rights in Expression

Excerpt: After years of promising it would find a way to punish professor Amy Wax for her controversial views on race and gender, Penn delivered today — despite zero evidence Wax ever discriminated against her students.

Faculty nationwide may now pay a heavy price for Penn's willingness to undercut academic freedom for all to get at this one professor. After today, any university under pressure to censor a controversial faculty member need only follow Penn’s playbook.

Ryan Quinn
Inside Higher Ed

Excerpt: A conservative Princeton University professor tried to give a speech this month at Washington College centering on the need for campus free speech. Students disrupted his talk and succeeded in ending it.

It was another example of what are often called student shoutdowns or “heckler’s vetoes”—though the meaning of that phrase is contested—disrupting conservative speakers. Perhaps most prominently this year, in March, Stanford University students disrupted a talk by Judge Kyle Duncan of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

Abigail Anthony
National Review

Excerpt: Princeton University president Christopher Eisgruber sent an email today to all undergraduates recognizing that it has been nearly two weeks since a sit-in began on campus. He notes the particularly fraught situation, stating, “Never have I seen our campus more riven with passionate disagreements, disagreements that encompass the war in Gaza as well as issues about Princeton itself.” Eisgruber confirmed that “my colleagues and I are now in direct conversation with the protestors,” adding, “We can consider their concerns through appropriate processes that respect the interests of multiple parties and viewpoints, but we cannot allow any group to circumvent those processes or exert special leverage.”  Although Eisgruber and administrators are now speaking with the protesters, his email does not offer a particularly positive description of them. . . . The university’s stance is clear: The administration is willing to consider — even implement — demands raised by students who occupy buildings.

Vitus Larrieu
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: An executive order signed by President Donald Trump and released on Wednesday, Jan. 29 calls for Princeton and other universities to “monitor” and “report activities by alien students and staff” for actions that constitute antisemitism.

The executive order gives various federal agencies — including the Department of Education — 60 days to create a list of all cases involving a university alleging civil rights violations related to antisemitism that occurred following the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. A Title VI case related to antisemitism at Princeton was opened by the Department of Education in January 2024, referencing chants at pro-Palestine protests in October 2023.

Annie Rupertus and Miriam Waldvogel
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: About 100 undergraduate and graduate students began a sit-in on McCosh Courtyard early Thursday morning, joining a wave of pro-Palestinian sit-ins across the country. After student organizers first began to erect tents, Princeton Public Safety (PSAFE) issued its first warning to protesters. At least two student arrests have been made. After the initial arrests, students folded them away.

Stuart Taylor Jr., president of "Princetonians for Free Speech" and an RCP contributor, joined Tom Bevan, Friday on the RealClearPolitics podcast, to talk about the Trump administration’s decision to suspend hundreds of millions of dollars in grants to Princeton.

They discuss this piece by Christopher Rufo and Ryan Thorpe in City Journal: "Princeton’s War on Civil Rights"

Continue reading & watch

The Editorial Board
Wall Street Journal 

Excerpt: President Trump keeps flexing the government’s power over elite universities, with Cornell and Northwestern the latest to have federal funds withheld. After Princeton received the same treatment last week, it’s now facing a test of its principles. On Monday students disrupted a campus talk by former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett.

Princeton’s rules of conduct, drawing from the University of Chicago’s statement on free speech, say students “may not obstruct or otherwise interfere with the freedom of others to express views they reject.” Who pulled the fire alarm? Who was yelling antisemitic taunts at Jewish students? If they were students, why would Princeton want them?

April 9, 2025

Dear President Eisgruber:

We, the officers of Princetonians for Free Speech (PFS), are writing to express our organization’s very deep concerns about the disruption of the program featuring former Israel Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on April 7 and actions of severe antisemitism during and after that program.

Abigail Anthony
National Review

Excerpt: Princeton University faculty passed a non-binding resolution on Monday calling for disciplinary and legal amnesty for students arrested for the pro-Palestinian encampment and occupation of a university building. The resolution passed 154–136, with eight abstentions.

By The Editorial Board
Wall Street Journal

Excerpt: A Fourth Circuit majority [ruled] that Virginia Tech's bias response team does not have a chilling effect on free speech. The ruling, written by Judge Diana Gribbon Motz, a Clinton appointee, states: "[T]he First Amendment does not stand in the way of modest efforts to encourage civility on college campuses." Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III, a Reagan appointee, wrote in dissent: "The stark reality of the record is that programs like the Bias Intervention and Response Team are being used in the service of discouraging that open inquiry from which education draws its very meaning and sustenance.”

April 9, 2025

Dear President Eisgruber:

We, the officers of Princetonians for Free Speech (PFS), are writing to express our organization’s very deep concerns about the disruption of the program featuring former Israel Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on April 7 and actions of severe antisemitism during and after that program.

Paul Du Quenoy 
Tablet Magazine

Excerpt: Endlessly self-congratulatory, insufferably pedantic, irritatingly repetitive, and self-referential nearly to the point of parody, Eisgruber argues that our system of higher education is, with rare and regrettable exceptions, successfully fulfilling its primary functions. In his opinion, his industry deserves “high marks” for protecting free speech rather than criticism for devaluing it. Academia’s travails indicate that our campuses are merely hapless victims of a larger “civic crisis” besetting American society, not a cause of it.

Endowed with a strong tradition of free expression, in Eisgruber’s strikingly ahistorical view, America has only recently succumbed to political divisions exacerbated by rampant partisanship and pernicious social media use.