Campus free speech is alive — barely



America’s universities have forgotten what education is for. And they are increasingly willing to treat the God-given right of free speech as something administrators may grant or withdraw.

American higher education received its annual free-speech report card this week. The good news is that the patient has a pulse. The bad news is that we have apparently lowered our expectations to the point where this counts as good news.

Maybe students are beginning to rediscover something their institutions forgot: Hearing an argument does not constitute an injury.

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression released its 2027 College Free Speech Rankings, based on the experiences of nearly 63,000 students at 261 American colleges and universities. The average university continues to perform badly at one of the activities universities were ostensibly invented to encourage: thinking out loud.

This is an unusual institutional achievement. A hospital that made patients afraid to discuss their symptoms would attract attention. A law school where students feared making arguments would be considered defective. But a university where students learn to keep controversial thoughts to themselves can still issue press releases celebrating its commitment to dialogue.

It is all the art of illusion. Universities tell the public, “We are inclusive,” while students know they may have to self-censor or risk angering professors who control their grades.

I know something about this from the inside. I have taught at Arizona State University for more than two decades. Our motto is “inclusive excellence.” Yet I run a Substack where I document how ASU professors stifle free speech and push DEI and LGBTQ ideology onto their students.

ASU is slipping in the FIRE rankings. This year it ranks 29th out of 261 schools, down from 23rd last year. Its numerical score increased from about 70 to 72, but its grade remains a C-.

Apparently, even grade inflation has limits.

A C- is awful, and ASU administrators should make correcting course a top priority. Instead, they host events like “Queer Animacies.”

The more interesting numbers are buried beneath the overall ranking.

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DNY59/Getty Images

FIRE reports that ASU remains in the bottom 50 nationally for “openness,” its measure of whether students believe they can discuss controversial subjects freely. Even more striking, ASU’s ranking for “administrative support” fell 107 places in a single year.

Think about that combination. Students attend a university to learn how to think, yet many perceive controversial subjects as effectively off-limits, while their confidence that administrators will defend free speech has substantially deteriorated.

This points to a deeper problem than free speech.

We have forgotten what a university is for.

Socrates did not walk around Athens distributing approved answers. He asked questions. Irritating questions, as the Athenians eventually discovered.

He questioned politicians, poets, and craftsmen who believed themselves wise and discovered that possessing expertise in one subject has a curious tendency to persuade people that they possess expertise in everything.

Twenty-five centuries later, we have perfected the type.

The university is supposed to cultivate intellectual maturity by forcing students to distinguish what they know from what they merely assume. That requires disagreement. It requires professors willing to have their own beliefs questioned. And it requires students who can make an argument without first consulting the ideological weather report.

When I was recently interviewed by KJZZ in Phoenix about my Arizona Supreme Court case, leftists — including ASU professors — took to the Facebook comments to dish out personal attacks because I dared to question the university’s DEI curriculum. My case concerns a training program I argue violated Arizona law; ASU has disputed my claims, and the Arizona Supreme Court is now being asked to decide whether I may proceed with the suit.

Such professors teach students the one skill required for university success: identifying the professor’s approved conclusion.

This is not education. Not even close. It’s training students to lie for approval and to accept censorship.

The problem becomes particularly obvious when universities congratulate themselves on “critical thinking.”

Critical thinking is one of those phrases that appears in university mission statements with approximately the frequency of “excellence,” “inclusion,” and “innovation.” Everyone favors it because nobody bothers to define it.

But critical thinking cannot mean criticizing only the ideas your professors have already designated as problematic.

If students are encouraged to “interrogate” Christianity but not transgender ideology, colonialism but not Marxism, capitalism but not DEI, they have not been taught critical thinking.

They have been given a list of suspects.

Real critical thinking is considerably more dangerous because it applies the same standards to everyone.

Can you define your terms?

What is your evidence?

Does your conclusion follow from your premises?

Are your premises true?

What would prove you wrong?

Those questions are wonderfully indifferent to race, sex, political party, academic rank, ideology, or preferred pronouns.

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Kevin Carter/Getty Images

Logic has always suffered from an embarrassing lack of sensitivity.

This is why free speech is not merely one university value among many. It is inseparable from the purpose of the institution. And it is a God-given right, not a gift to be handed out and taken back by radical professors or university administrators.

A university exists because human beings are not born knowing the truth. We must learn.

Learning requires discovering that some things we believe are false. Discovering that requires allowing someone to tell us we are wrong.

Remove that possibility and the university ceases to be a university in anything but name.

There is at least one encouraging finding in the new national data. Student tolerance for shouting down speakers, blocking access to events, and using violence against speakers declined slightly from last year’s record highs. Maybe students are beginning to rediscover something their institutions forgot: Hearing an argument does not constitute an injury.

That’s progress.

But universities should not congratulate themselves because students have become slightly less enthusiastic about silencing one another. The standard is considerably higher.

The university should be the place in American life where the unpopular question is most welcome.

Where the student can challenge the professor.

Where the professor can challenge the administration.

Where Christians, atheists, conservatives, progressives, Marxists, and their increasingly rare opponents can all be asked the same unforgiving question: How do you know?

Until universities recover that purpose, Americans will need to be honest about their value.

And we will cultivate our God-given freedom to think elsewhere.

Think woke is dead? Meet the literature professor fired for teaching literature.



With crippling anxiety and microscopic attention spans, today’s college students are in a bad way.

To compound matters, an increasing number possess reading skills that appear to have peaked in fifth grade. Yet the moment a literature professor challenges them with a work of fiction, she finds herself ruthlessly punished.

FIRE’s lawsuit seeks to restore sanity to a system that has clearly lost its bearings.

What you are about to read is depressing, but not necessarily surprising. After all, this is a culture already intent on turning literature into scrap metal. For years, ridiculously woke crusaders have worked tirelessly to cancel Shakespeare for wrongthink and forcibly inject modern queer elements into his work.

Now, the institutional axe swings in whatever direction keeps the peace, chopping down any story that threatens to upset an undergraduate.

Books smart

Vinita Prabhakar taught English at South Florida State College for nearly 20 years. Her reward for that service? Being booted out the door because one student had a brief moment of cognitive discomfort and a college president panicked.

The piece of literature in question wasn't a step-by-step guide to urban guerrilla warfare, but a short story featuring a deeply flawed protagonist. Prabhakar assigned Ottessa Moshfegh's "Bettering Myself" for the exact reason professors have assigned challenging literature since the invention of the printing press: to force students to analyze provocative ideas rather than stare blankly at a wall.

Enter Fred Hawkins, the college president. Hawkins decided the story was problematic, informed Prabhakar he never wanted to see the text again, and promptly oversaw her suspension.

This level of executive intervention bypassed the entire chain of academic oversight.

FIRE alarm

"Universities can set the curriculum, but that’s very different from a president personally overruling the academic professionals who actually supervise a professor," Greg Greubel told me. Greubel is a senior attorney at FIRE, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, who is representing Prabhakar.

While Professor Prabhakar’s academic supervisors explicitly endorsed her pedagogical judgment, President Hawkins personally intervened to crush it because he disliked the story and deemed the matter political.

Greubel warns that if this precedent “is allowed to stand, professors will learn to choose the safest reading rather than the one that best challenges their students."

The interaction between the professor and the student was a textbook case of quality instruction. A student expressed discomfort with the assigned material. Prabhakar didn’t mock the student, nor did she send the student to a re-education camp. She engaged the class in an open and civil debate, processed the critique, and kept the student integrated in the course.

"It is exceptionally unusual, especially because Professor Prabhakar successfully navigated the situation," Greubel notes. "The student raised a concern; Professor Prabhakar addressed it through discussion, and the student continued to participate without incident.”

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Scott Olson/Getty Images

Protection from paper

In other words, the classroom functioned exactly as higher education was designed to work, right up until the university president intervened and transformed level-headed mentorship into an administrative execution.

Hawkins blew up a functioning pedagogical resolution to protect adults from words on paper. Florida statutory law explicitly forbids public colleges to baby students who encounter ideas they find objectionable. The state legislature wrote those protections into law precisely to stop neurotic middle managers from gutting course catalogs every time an undergraduate gets a stomachache from a difficult paragraph.

Greubel points directly to this legal framework as a key element of Prabhakar’s defense. "It helps because it shows that, at least at one point, Florida politicians understood the dangers of censoring materials in higher education simply because someone views them as offensive," Greubel explains.

"The law says public colleges should not shield students from ideas they find uncomfortable, unwelcome, or offensive. Yet that is essentially what happened here.”

No authority

Beyond handing Professor Prabhakar a clear lawsuit, the law reinforces an elementary First Amendment truth. University officials don’t have the constitutional authority to dismantle a curriculum to accommodate their personal sensitivities.

In 1943, the Supreme Court held in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette that no official, regardless of title or ego, can determine what constitutes acceptable political, national, or religious orthodoxy. Eighty-three years later, campus administrators behave like absolute monarchs, treating state educational statutes as optional suggestions.

When campus bureaucrats act this way, the primary objective becomes eliminating risk entirely. Between the hyper-progressive crusade to gut classic literature and the reactionary urge to ban anything that causes an emotional tremor, decent literature doesn't stand a chance. Thought-provoking fiction contains risk. Critical analysis contains risk. Therefore, the safest syllabus is a blank stack of paper, and the safest classroom is an entirely neutralized one.

Justice for Professor Prabhakar

FIRE’s lawsuit seeks to restore sanity to a system that has clearly lost its bearings.

"First and foremost, we want Professor Prabhakar back in the classroom, along with appropriate declaratory and injunctive relief to ensure she will not be fired in the future for teaching appropriate materials," Greubel states. "More broadly, we want to establish that public colleges cannot remove professors simply because an administrator, student, or member of the public dislikes assigned material.”

Although colleges retain the right to set academic benchmarks, they have zero authority to purge a professor for teaching legitimate material that directly serves the curriculum.

If an administrator can end an academic’s career over a single short story, the concept of academic freedom is all but dead. And colleges will keep doubling as glorified day-care centers, where adults pay thousands of dollars per semester to be protected from vowels and consonants.

By all accounts, Professor Prabhakar is a consummate professional who takes pride in her work. She has been treated appallingly and deserves justice.

Man suspected of torching one of NYC's oldest wooden churches nabbed while allegedly attempting to shoplift a sandwich



A man suspected of intentionally setting the fire that devastated a 173-year-old Brooklyn church was arrested early Wednesday morning after allegedly attempting to shoplift food from a Times Square CVS, according to police.

John Jones, 24, was taken into custody at approximately 1:39 a.m. by an off-duty NYPD officer working private security at the CVS at West 49th Street and Broadway after he allegedly tried to steal a sandwich and a Coca-Cola.

'Now we understand it is intentional, which brings another layer of grief to myself, as well as the congregation and the community.'

While Jones was being processed on the petty larceny charge, officers discovered there was an outstanding warrant for his arrest in connection with the June fire that destroyed the historic South Bushwick Reformed Church.

Jones is charged with federal arson in connection to the blaze.

Investigators had been searching for Jones after surveillance footage allegedly captured him fleeing the area of South Bushwick Reformed Church shortly before flames erupted around 1:20 p.m. on June 19.

The three-alarm fire drew nearly 200 first responders and caused catastrophic damage to the landmarked church, including the collapse of its iconic steeple into the roof. The church was empty at the time, with only one firefighter suffering minor injuries.

RELATED: Fire that destroyed one of NYC’s oldest wooden churches was intentionally set, FDNY determines

South Bushwick Reformed Church, 1923.Eugene L. Armbruster/The New York Historical Society/Getty Images

Last month, the FDNY officially determined the fire to be incendiary, meaning it had been deliberately set, though the investigation remained ongoing.

"Now we understand it is intentional, which brings another layer of grief to myself, as well as the congregation and the community," Pastor James E. Steward II previously told CBS News.

South Bushwick Reformed Church was built in 1853 and declared a city landmark by the Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1968. It was one of only eight surviving wooden landmarked houses of worship in the entirety of New York City, with the congregation itself dating back to Dutch settlers in the 17th century.

In the weeks following the fire, church leaders and preservationists fought to save what remained of the historic structure after the Department of Buildings initially moved toward demolition.

The city ultimately granted a temporary pause to allow engineers and contractors to pursue a stabilization plan for portions of the building, including its 1881 fellowship hall.

This week, Harlem's Abyssinian Baptist Church donated $5,000 to aid in the recovery effort as church leaders continue evaluating whether the landmark can be rebuilt or partially restored.

"When we heard the news that South Bushwick Church had caught fire, we wanted to come from Harlem to let you know that we love you, that we care for you," Rev. Dr. Kevin R. Johnson said. "Today we bring you a check of $5,000 on behalf of the members of the Abyssinian Baptist Church."

Additionally, according to a criminal complaint filed by the Eastern District of New York, Jones was also arrested by NYPD on or about June 28 in connection with “a separate property destruction incident.”

The New York Post, citing sources, has since reported that Jones was accused of destroying a television at a Williamsburg restaurant, earning him a criminal mischief charge.

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Fire that destroyed one of NYC’s oldest wooden churches was intentionally set, FDNY determines



The fire that ravaged a 173-year-old Brooklyn church last month has been determined to be incendiary, meaning it was deliberately set.

Fire marshals announced the determination Tuesday, adding that the investigation remains ongoing.

'Now we understand it is intentional, which brings another layer of grief to myself, as well as the congregation and the community.'

The New York Daily News had previously reported, citing FDNY sources, that the FDNY and NYPD were investigating the incident as a possible case of arson.

A person of interest was seen walking around South Bushwick Reformed Church shortly before a fire erupted around 1:20 p.m. on June 19. A three-alarm fire was then triggered, causing nearly 200 first responders to rush to the scene.

The church was empty at the time, according to the FDNY.

By 3:35 p.m., firefighters had managed to bring the flames under control, yet the church had sustained significant damage, including the collapse of the steeple into the roof.

As of Wednesday morning, no arrests have been made.

A GoFundMe was created by the church shortly after the tragedy to, as Pastor James E. Steward II wrote, raise money for "emergency stabilization of the property, temporary worship space, replacement of damaged equipment and furnishings, community outreach ministries, architectural and engineering assessments, and restoration and rebuilding efforts.”

As of Wednesday morning, the church has raised almost $16,000, with a fundraising goal of $26,000.

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"Now we understand it is intentional, which brings another layer of grief to myself, as well as the congregation and the community," Steward told CBS News.

"Whoever is responsible for this ultimately has to answer to God,” he added.

South Bushwick Reformed Church was built in 1853 and declared a city landmark by the Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1968. Under landmark classification, the LPC “must approve in advance any alteration, reconstruction, demolition, or new construction affecting the designated building.”

The church was one of only eight surviving wooden landmarked houses of worship in the entirety of New York City, with the congregation itself dating back to Dutch settlers in the 17th century.

South Bushwick Reformed Church, Brooklyn, New York, circa 1975.Edmund Vincent Gillon/Museum of the City of New York/Getty Images

In the weeks following the fire, church leaders fought to preserve as much of the landmark as possible, hoping portions of the remaining structure could be stabilized and incorporated into a future restoration.

The Department of Buildings had moved toward demolishing the remaining structure, but that effort was paused Tuesday after the DOB granted the church’s request for a hold on demolition through Saturday, according to the Bushwick Historic Preservation Association.

The pause gives the church time to try to save its fellowship hall, a church extension built in 1881 as a Sunday school building.

“In an incredible reversal of fortune, WE JUST SECURED A HOLD ON THE DEMOLITION!” the group wrote in an Instagram post Tuesday. “This morning, the DOB reached out giving us another chance and this time our submission was accepted.”

The church “finally put together a team of engineers and contractors and came up with a plan to stabilize the rectory side of the building in a way that wouldn’t endanger workers on site,” DOB press secretary Andrew Rudansky said.

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‘Nice job, Karen!’ Spencer Pratt blasts Bass after leftist-run LA seeks help from Texas to fight warehouse fire.



The Los Angeles Fire Department has been battling a blaze at a Boyle Heights cold-storage facility for nearly a week that began when the solar panels on the warehouse’s rooftop caught fire.

Former mayoral challenger Spencer Pratt criticized Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass for cutting the LAFD’s budget and noted that the warehouse had previously been the site of a solar panel fire in 2024.

'Interior storage rack systems remain in place and are supporting portions of the collapsed roof, creating complex and unstable conditions that require a cautious and methodical approach.'

“This same warehouse had a solar panel fire 2 years ago," Pratt wrote in a social media post. He claimed that Bass "slashed the LAFD budget and now they can’t stop it, and it’s spewing out heavy metals into the lungs of Boyle Heights folks for a week straight."

"Nice job, Karen!” he added.

Officials have reported that air monitoring results show no toxic chemicals or hazards beyond those expected in normal fire smoke.

Pratt further criticized the city’s leadership for having to “bring in resources from TEXAS to manage a single structure fire” after LAFD Chief Jaime Moore stated that the city was bringing in water cannons from Texas.

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Etienne LAURENT/AFP/Getty Images

The fire prompted California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) and Bass to issue emergency declarations on Saturday.

Newsom’s office stated that the fire has “produced significant smoke and particulate matter that may affect air quality in surrounding neighborhoods.”

“The City and County have opened spaces for families seeking relief from the smoke, and we will continue working around the clock and doing everything possible to put this fire out completely,” Bass stated.

Operations at several schools in the area were temporarily relocated due to ongoing air quality concerns, the Los Angeles Times reported.

RELATED: 'It's war': Spencer Pratt says he'll keep working to save Los Angeles — and claims to have damaging evidence

Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images

The LAFD provided an update on Sunday stating that fire crews had made “significant progress,” but noted that the “building’s construction continues to present operational challenges.”

“Interior storage rack systems remain in place and are supporting portions of the collapsed roof, creating complex and unstable conditions that require a cautious and methodical approach,” the LAFD wrote.

“Smoke conditions have improved significantly and are expected to continue improving as firefighters make progress extinguishing the fire. Although smoke conditions are trending in a positive direction, intermittent increases in smoke may occur as crews open walls and other concealed spaces to locate and extinguish hidden fire,” it continued.

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Suspect in deadly Palisades Fire was obsessed with Luigi Mangione, critical of rich: Prosecutors



The 2025 Palisades Fire raged for at least 24 days, torching 23,448 acres in Los Angeles County, killing 12 people, and destroying over 6,800 structures.

While state authorities list Jan. 7, 2025, as being the official start of the Palisades Fire, the 30-year-old son of a French citizen is accused of kindling the inferno days earlier.

'It would be out of resentment of the rich enjoying their money.'

Jonathan Rinderknecht was arrested in October and charged with property destruction by means of fire, arson affecting property used in interstate commerce, and willful of malicious burning of timber on federal lands. He is alleged to have set the Lachman Fire on New Year's Day — a fire that was suppressed but apparently continued to burn underground until revived topside days later by heavy winds.

Federal prosecutors have provided new details about the alleged arsonist.

According to a trial memorandum reviewed by Bloomberg, Rinderknecht "exhibited extreme anger, indignation, and frustration about being unable to find companionship on New Year’s Eve."

This aligns with what investigators previously said about the suspect.

A Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives agent claimed in a sworn affidavit that:

  • witnesses observed Rinderknecht acting "agitated and angry" on the evening of Dec. 31, 2024;
  • Rinderknecht allegedly watched the music video for a despair-themed song featuring fire-setting imagery repeatedly in the days leading up to the Lachman Fire; and
  • the suspect asked ChatGPT, "Are you at fault if a fire is life [sic] because of your cigarettes."

Prosecutors said in the new filing that after unsuccessfully trying to make plans with two other people, Rinderknecht — then working as an Uber driver — dropped off passengers in the Palisades area then, "alone again," scaled the hillside where investigators apparently found evidence that the suspect had set a fire with a barbecue lighter.

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Qian Weizhong/VCG/Getty Images

Prosecutors further alleged that Rinderknecht had become "increasingly angry with his life and society at large," adding that he had become "fixated on Luigi Mangione" — the 27-year-old Maryland native accused of assassinating UnitedHealthcare chief executive Brian Thompson on Dec. 4, 2024.

According to the trial memorandum, a forensic review of Rinderknecht's computer revealed he had searched for news regarding Mangione using search terms like "free Luigi Mangione," "lets [sic] take down all the billionaires," and "reddit lets kill all the billionaires."

Mangione is apparently admired by more than one alleged arsonist.

Chamel Abdulkarim, a 29-year-old accused of sparking the massive fire that destroyed a 1.2 million-square-foot warehouse in Ontario, California, last month, compared himself to Mangione, according to Bill Essayli, the first assistant United States attorney for the Central District of California.

When questioned by investigators about why someone might set the Palisades area ablaze, Rinderknecht said that "it would be out of resentment of the rich enjoying their money as 'we're basically being enslaved by them' and compared such an act of 'desperation' to the murder for which Mangione was charged," prosecutors claimed in the filing.

Steven Haney, Rinderknecht’s lawyer, said in a statement to Bloomberg, "I maintain my client’s innocence."

"No misguided theory from the government will change the lack of evidence showing my client started or was responsible for either of the fires for which he is charged. We look forward to proving it at trial," added Haney.

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Universities treated free speech as expendable in 2025



The fight over free expression in American higher education reached a troubling milestone in 2025. According to data from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, efforts to censor speech on college campuses hit record highs across multiple fronts — and most succeeded.

Let’s start with the raw numbers. In 2025, FIRE’s Scholars Under Fire, Students Under Fire, and Campus Deplatforming databases collectively tracked:

  • 525 attempts to sanction scholars for their speech, more than one a day, with 460 of them resulting in punishment.
  • 273 attempts to punish students for expression, more than five a week, with 176 of these attempts succeeding.
  • 160 attempts to deplatform speakers, about three each week, with 99 of them succeeding.

That’s 958 censorship attempts in total, nearly three per day on campuses across the country. For comparison, FIRE’s next-highest total was 477 two years ago.

The 525 scholar sanction attempts are the highest ever recorded in FIRE’s database, which spans 2000 to the present. Even when a large-scale incident at the U.S. Naval Academy is treated as just a single entry, the 2025 total still breaks records.

The common denominator across these censorship campaigns is not ideology — it’s intolerance.

Twenty-nine scholars were fired, including 18 who were terminated since September for social media comments about Charlie Kirk’s assassination.

Student sanction attempts also hit a new high, and deplatforming efforts — our records date back to 1998 — rank third all-time, behind 2023 and 2024.

The problem is actually worse because FIRE’s data undercounts the true scale of campus censorship. Why? The data relies on publicly available information, and an unknown number of incidents, especially those that may involve quiet administrative pressure, never make the public record.

Then there’s the chilling effect.

Scholars are self-censoring. Students are staying silent. Speakers are being disinvited or shouted down. And administrators, eager to appease the loudest voices, are launching investigations and handing out suspensions and dismissals with questionable regard for academic freedom, due process, or free speech.

RELATED: Liberals’ twisted views on Charlie Kirk assassination, censorship captured by a damning poll

Deagreez via iStock/Getty Images

Some critics argue that the total number of incidents is small compared to the roughly 4,000 colleges in the country. But this argument collapses under scrutiny.

While there are technically thousands of institutions labeled as “colleges” or “universities,” roughly 600 of them educate about 80% of undergraduates enrolled at not-for-profit four-year schools. Many of the rest of these “colleges” and “universities” are highly specialized or vocational programs. This includes a number of beauty academies, truck-driving schools, and similar institutions — in other words, campuses that aren’t at the heart of the free-speech debate.

These censorship campaigns aren’t coming from only one side of the political spectrum. FIRE’s data shows, for instance, that liberal students are punished for pro-Palestinian activism, conservative faculty are targeted for controversial opinions on gender or race, and speaking events featuring all points of view are targeted for cancellation.

The two most targeted student groups on campus? Students for Justice in Palestine and Turning Point USA. If that doesn’t make this point clear, nothing will.

The common denominator across these censorship campaigns is not ideology — it’s intolerance.

RELATED: Teenager sues high school after tribute to Charlie Kirk was called vandalism

rudall30 via iStock/Getty Images

So where do we go from here?

We need courage: from faculty, from students, and especially from administrators. It’s easy to defend speech when it’s popular. It’s harder when the ideas are offensive or inconvenient. But that’s when it matters most.

Even more urgently, higher education needs a cultural reset. Universities must recommit to the idea that exposure to ideas and speech that one dislikes or finds offensive is not “violence.” That principle is essential for democracy, not just for universities.

This year’s record number of campus censorship attempts should be a wake-up call for campus administrators. For decades, many allowed a culture of censorship to fester, dismissing concerns as overblown, isolated, or a politically motivated myth. Now, with governors, state legislatures, members of Congress, and even the White House moving aggressively to police campus expression, some administrators are finally pushing back. But this pushback from administrators doesn’t seem principled. Instead, it seems more like an attempt to shield their institutions from outside political interference.

That’s not leadership. It’s damage control. And it’s what got higher education into this mess in the first place.

If university leaders want to reclaim their role as stewards of free inquiry, they cannot act just when governmental pressure threatens their autonomy. They also need to be steadfast when internal intolerance threatens their mission. A true commitment to academic freedom means defending expression even when it is unpopular or offensive. That is the price of intellectual integrity in a free society.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.

9th Circuit Protects Professor’s First Amendment Right To Make Fun Of Land Acknowledgments

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