free speech

Statehouses, not Stanford Students, Threaten Speech on Campus

by Eduardo Peñalver

Higher ed administrators have recently flexed their muscle in response to student protests of controversial speakers and demands for content warnings. They appear to have no such sense of purpose when it comes to defending free speech and free inquiry from legislative interference. 

Free Speech Can't Trump a University's Obligation to Truth and Facts

by David Palumbo-Liu

A Stanford historian says that his own university's acceptance of Rupert Murdoch on the board of directors of the Hoover Institution is a rejection of the university's obligation to promote understanding over obscurantism. 

Brown President: States, not Students, are Threatening Speech on Campus

by Christina Paxson

"It is ludicrous to claim that state-sponsored censorship — which carries the full force of the government and can even entail criminal penalties — is justified by student misconduct or peer pressure."

House Hearings on Campus Speech Show Different Perceptions of the Problem

For Republicans, the problem is about "self-censorship" in a climate supposedly hostile to conservatives. For Democrats, its about the power of state legislation to ban topics and ideas from research and discussion. 

Drawing the Line between Assigning and Endorsing

by Steve Mintz

Controversies about recent books about the history and legacy of colonialism raise questions about what it means to assign – or refuse to – a book for students to read, discuss, and potentially critique, and how provocation works in the liberal model of inquiry. 

Can FIRE's Free Expression Crusade Work Off Campus?

The organization is pursuing a rebranding as an advocate for free expression off-campus. Supporters cheer its pledge to support free debate; detractors argue the group is advancing conservative complaints about "wokeness." 

Separating Good and Silly Criticism of FIRE in the Campus Speech Debate

by Jeffrey Sachs

One leading commenter on questions of academic freedom evaluates the criticism of an oganization on the front lines, concluding that many critics are asking silly questions and leaving significant ones aside. 

The Insidious Two-Step University Administrations Use to Squelch Faculty Speech

by Joshua Clover

Carnegie Mellon's treatment of a professor who made a controversial tweet about Queen Elizabeth and colonialism shows the willingness of universities to capitulate to outrage at the expense of free speech, as well as their lack of support for their faculty. 

The Writer of "The Onion" SCOTUS Brief Takes Parody Seriously

The satirical newspaper's brief employed the rhetorical mode to lay out the free speech implications of a case involving a man who faced retaliatory arrest for making a parody facebook account for his local police department. 

The Bitter Irony of Rushdie Being Attacked at Chautauqua

by Charlotte M. Canning

Chautauqua was founded for the discussion of ideas, and while the attack shows there is no perfect asylum from repression, the Institution's survival represents the ongoing commitment to education and civic discussion. 

Do Heterodox Academy Surveys Tell Us Anything Useful About the Campus Speech Climate?

Experts debate whether polls showing students perceive stifled speech on controversial subjects are reflecting or driving reality, and if they are being used in a conservative attack on higher education. 

Virtual Event: Scholars Discuss Free Speech at American Writers Museum May 18

This event looks at historical moments where strident expressions of political thought, widely perceived to be anti-democratic in their own place and time, provoked new strictures.

Trying to Change Twitter's Content Moderation is Going to Disappoint Elon Musk

by Evelyn Douek

Musk is delusional if he thinks that Twitter can function without moderation. The problem this highlights is the ability of a small number of billionaires to make the decisions that shape the contemporary public sphere. 

Dan Patrick's Illiberal Attack on Higher Ed

by Jonathan Marks

There are good conservative arguments for abolishing faculty tenure; Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick isn't advancing one of them as he seeks to punish political opponents for their ideas.

Longtime Professor: Campus Free Speech Problem Isn't What You Think

by Lucas Mann

The campus free speech debate is framed by a fishbowl of the most selective campuses serving a tiny fraction of the student population. 

Scholar Nicholas Grossman: What, Exactly is America's Free Speech Problem?

"When identifying a national problem, presumably in pursuit of national solutions, the details matter a lot."

The Thrill of Teaching Mill

by Samuel Goldman

Mill was prescient in focusing attention not only on the restriction of speech by the state, but on the cultural and social obstacles to dissenting opinion.

Russian Academics See "No Future" at Home

While many Western academics have focused on the danger faced by Ukrainian scholars, it is clear that the domestic politics of Russia are increasingly dangerous for academic freedom as well. 

Is Emma Camp Correct That College Students Silence Themselves?

by Claire Potter

Do the writings of an intellectually self-assured college senior actually reflect a crisis of self-censorship, or a long tradition of finding and campaigning against alleged "conformism"? 

Lessons From the Struggle Against the Old McCarthyism

by Benjamin Mitchell-Yellin

For a Texas professor, the Lieutenant Governor's push to abolish tenure and punish faculty for teaching certain ideas calls to mind the experiences of his grandparents in the heyday of McCarthy and HUAC.