In reference to the state of free speech on college campuses during an appearance on The Megan Kelly show, FIRE President Greg Lukianoff gave an impassioned defense of free speech. He said being offended is a vital part of a student’s education. “There is a humility to being in favor of freedom of speech, which is that you always take seriously the possibility you might be wrong,” Lukianoff said. (Washington Examiner, January 24, 2022, by Heather Hamilton)
FIRE is investigation Dartmouth College’s decision to cancel a speech by a conservative journalist in the face of threats of violence. (NH Journal, January 21, 2022, by Damien Fisher)
The Biden administration has refused to release records of complaints from students and staff about the silencing of conservative viewpoints on campus. Former President Donald Trump established the complaint hotline (The Tampa Free Press, December 28, 2021, by Liam Edgar)
Massachusett’s Salem State University changed its free speech policies to allow an activist to promote his religious views on campus including anti-LGBTQ viewpoints. (The Ohio Star, December 13, 2021, by Logan Dubil)
Princeton professor Keith E. Whittington, Reason, December 12, 2021, criticized Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry for asking Louisiana State University president to discipline a professor for finding fault with the attorney general in a dispute over a vaccine mandate.
New York University exonerated a professor under attack by colleagues and a student for asking students to research both sides on wearing masks during the pandemic. (The Epoch Times, December 12, 2021)
A proposed Republican bill would punish Wisconsin public universities for free speech violations. Violators would pay fines and be required to notify students of the violations for 10 years. (Wisconsin Public Radio, December 8, 2021, by Rich Kremer)
Writing in The Progressive Magazine, November 19, 2021, Isaac Kamola and Ralph Wilson argue that there is scant evidence that conservative voices are routinely shut down on college campuses. Plus there is some evidence that conservative faculty exercise more influence on students than do their liberal colleagues. It is also more common for liberal professors to be threatened, harassed or fired.
Student Niko Malhotra in The Williams Record, November 10, 2021, takes issue with Williams College professor Phoebe Cohen who took a leading role in MIT’s cancellation of a lecture by University of Chicago’s Dorian Abbot on climate science. Cohen argued in national forums that Abbot’s opposition to affirmative action disqualified him.
Under pressure from Republican lawmakers, the Iowa Board of Regents established a free speech survey part of a plan to protect campus free speech. (Iowa Capital Dispatch, November 9, 2021, by Katie Akin)
In Yale Daily News, November 9, 2021, student Jack McCordick finds troubling “silences and omissions” during coverage of an incident involving a law student’s invitation to a party at his “trap house,” meaning a house where illegal drugs are sold. The term originated in poor neighborhoods in Atlanta, Georgia in the 1990s. McCordick observed that during the controversy law student Trent Colbert benefited from “fawning media treatment,” while minority students who objected to Colbert’s invitation were referred to with such terms as “censorious” or those who “just won’t let something go.”