A New Test for Free Speech
…punishing them risks embracing the same censorial logic that conservatives have spent years fighting. Given the routine censorship aimed at the right, some may welcome these penalties as overdue symmetry….
Search Results for: censorship
NYU Cancels Federalist Society Free Speech Event—Then Reinstates It Following Backlash
…ensuring that all student groups, regardless of viewpoint, can peacefully host events with invited speakers without facing censorship disguised as logistics. NYU presumably got the message loud and clear, because…
The Campus Creed That Survived an Assassination
…for disruptive tactics on the right. Even then, however, that support remained far lower than on the left. (Read Peter Wood’s “FIRE Overstates Conservative Censorship on Campus”). FIRE’s new survey…
After the Kirk Assassination, Students Still Say Words Are Violence
…also documents a sharp rise in self-censorship following the assassination. Nationwide, 45 percent of students say they are now less comfortable expressing their views in class, 43 percent in common…
Harvard’s Workshops Won’t Fix a Campus Afraid to Speak
…pursuing research on politically or socially sensitive topics. These findings were reported not by critics but by Harvard Magazine and the Boston Globe, which noted widespread self-censorship across the political…
Education Schools Buried 100 Years of Research on Testing
…the education establishment’s seal of censorship to reveal the rich, robust research literature on standards and testing and the optimal structure of testing programs. Alas, no. Instead, through the 2000s…
Harvard’s Got an Ethics Problem
…and compete fairly, so the strongest arguments rise to the top. Increasingly, the answer is no. The problem is not mere disagreement—it is censorship, particularly of those who dissent from…
A Student’s Short Take on DEI: It’s Undermining Education and Intellectual Growth
…they would never share publicly, fearing labels like “xenophobic” or “bigoted.” For example, a student may privately disagree with a government policy but remain silent in class. Such self-censorship is…
Faculty Face Widespread Punishment for Speech, Administrators and Unions Stay Silent
…silencing, yet it’s dissenters—not mobs—who bear the real psychological cost. The result is a culture of timidity that corrodes the mission of higher education. [RELATED: FIRE Overstates Conservative Censorship on…
Trump’s Social Media Vetting Faces Free Speech Backlash. But Some Foreign Students Agree with Him.
…definitions of anti-Semitism and terrorism. Other sources allege that rigorous screening of visa applicants is a source of “anxiety” among international students, likening it to censorship and “strategies used in…
Lisa Siraganian Gets Viewpoint Diversity Backward
…from prevailing orthodoxies on policing, gender, or Israel face ostracism, reputational harm, and sometimes formal investigation. National surveys show widespread self-censorship among professors and students alike. These realities are not…
The Tyranny of Democracy’s Self-Appointed Guardians
…years had unleashed the FBI on concerned parents who spoke against vaccine mandates, mask mandates, and woke indoctrination at school board meetings. The voluminous uptick in speech censorship on college…
AAUP Declares Victory Over Trump’s ‘Thought Police,’ Promises To Protect Only the Right Kind of Free Speech
…may enter and on what terms. To blur the line between immigration policy and censorship is to collapse a nuanced constitutional question into a cartoon of repression. But even the…
The Death of Discourse
…stand on the other side of the anger and vitriol they so generously dished out themselves. Now, they cry, “censorship!” and “fascism!” Now, they fear a totalitarian government. Now, they…
Charlie Kirk Gunned Down on Utah Campus—And the Left Still Claims the Right Is More Violent
…as an appropriate means to silence people with whom they disagree. (Read Peter Wood’s “FIRE Overstates Conservative Censorship on Campus“). I reported earlier this year, for example, that Nicholas Decker,…
Can Trump’s AI EO Really Fix AI Bias?
…hallucinations, but skewing responses to partisan values. Andrew Gillen, in a review of political bias in AI models, concluded: Among many other problems, all of this suppression, censorship, and advertiser…
From Campus Rhetoric to Assassination
…Censorship on Campus] For months, we’ve been told that chants echoing through quads are merely symbolic. But phrases like “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” are…
FIRE Overstates Conservative Censorship on Campus
…discourse, are beginning to mirror the censorious habits of their progressive peers. Is this the beginning of a new trend? Not necessarily. [RELATED: After University, Censorship Looms] The censorious tactics…
Trump’s China Pivot Hurts America in Every Way
…Western education, weakens our own workforce, props up failing institutions that shouldn’t be saved, and enriches a rival power bent on censorship and control. This isn’t just about national security….
The Politics of an Anti-Woke Campus Op-Ed
…censored it. Obviously, a newspaper, even a student newspaper, should not be engaged in censorship. Third, and lastly, I have not heard from Interim President Mahoney. Perhaps he has not…
Qatar and China Raise Eyebrows on Campus—What About Germany?
…a fundamental right. But even without censorship or direct state pressure, DAAD’s structural incentives encourage a sanitized version of Germany to be taught at American universities. Germany’s failure in combating…
The Price We Pay for Performative Progressivism in Higher Education
…statements, but with concrete changes. [RELATED: After University, Censorship Looms] Stop treating dissent as harm. Disagreement is not violence. Questions are not attacks. And viewpoint diversity is what should thrive…
Experts Wonder if Columbia’s New Anti-Semitism Definition Is Sincere or ‘Sleight of Hand’
…the genocide of our people without censorship, let alone call for divestment,” it said. [RELATED: Is Cracking Down on Political Protest at Graduation a Violation or a Necessity?] The College…
The University Didn’t Want Him. A Generation Does.
…protests against censorship, government surveillance, and institutional overreach. He has spoken out against the redefinition of truth as whatever the loudest activist group claims it to be. And he has…
A Settlement Won’t Fix Columbia’s Anti-Semitism Problem
…students and staff feel forced into silence, into hiding, or into self-censorship. Columbia did not merely fail to deter this culture—it helped build it. Until Columbia confronts not only the…
At Oxford, the Pride Flag Is the New Union Jack
…was a live controversy. As my ally Jonathan Rauch said in January in a passionate speech at the Censorship in the Sciences Conference, what seemed impossible back in the 1990s…
Per Our Guide, You Can’t Say That
…and observances at times other than those you recognize.” Language guides have long served as subtle tools of censorship on Maryland’s campuses. In April 2023, Jared Gould—then Senior Editor at…
AI’s Bias: Glitch, Agenda, or Both? Why Students Can’t Trust It Blindly
…censorship and demonetization over the past several decades. This has artificially suppressed right-leaning content, which means that AI will interpret reality as more left-leaning than it really is. Ideally, solutions…
Colleges Pledge Institutional Neutrality but Support LGBT ‘Pride’
…Wellness Instagram account posted. “Whether you’re out, questioning, quiet, loud, or anywhere in between — you belong here.” [RELATED After University, Censorship Looms] Does it break the pledge? FIRE’s Murnane…
‘Why Intellectuals Are Wrong’
…governs. [RELATED: After University, Censorship Looms] A contempt for the common man? (Excerpt from Chapter 6) According to Raymond Boudon, intellectuals are attracted by the idea that the ordinary man…