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Free Speech Resources

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Guidelines for Free Speech on Campus

As a college student, you have the right to express your opinions and engage in respectful debates with your peers. However, you may face pressure to conform to the majority view or avoid speaking out on certain topics. Recent polling indicates as many as 80% of college students report they self-censor both in class, and in extracurricular settings on campus. This guide provides practical tips on how to respond to such pressure and exercise your freedom of speech effectively.

Report of the Committee on Freedom of Expression

The Committee has carefully reviewed the University’s history, examined events at other institutions, and consulted a broad range of individuals both inside and outside the University. This statement reflects the long-standing and distinctive values of the University of Chicago and affirms the importance of maintaining and, indeed, celebrating those values for the future.

Understanding Free Speech on Campus

Few Americans say conservatives can speak freely on college campuses, an AP-NORC/UChicago poll shows

Americans view college campuses as far friendlier to liberals than to conservatives when it comes to free speech, with adults across the political spectrum seeing less tolerance for those on the right, according to a new poll.

Perspective: College Students, First Amendment Values are Key to Your University Experience

There are some hopeful signs that colleges are battling back and renewing their commitment to First Amendment values. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) reports that an increasing number of colleges are adopting some form of the University of Chicago Committee on Free Expression’s statement.

Why Universities Must Defend Free Speech

Modern universities prefer to advertise themselves as committed to the pursuit of truth rather than to the recitation of dogma. Actually following through on that commitment often proves difficult. In order to sustain institutions of higher education that contribute to human progress, we must commit ourselves to liberal values of tolerance and freedom rather than to illiberal values of conformity and coercion.

Looming Enrollment Cliff Poses Serious Threat to Colleges

Today’s colleges and universities face a perfect storm of converging headwinds: Rising costs and mounting student debt. Admissions scandals amid cries of opaqueness. Political pressures to alter the curriculum. A Supreme Court seemingly eager to eradicate affirmative action. Waning public confidence.

Campus Protest Hypocrisy Reveals Need For Student Education on Free Speech

Student confusion about what free speech entails is posing a serious challenge to colleges and universities as they try to live up to new, and very public commitments to viewpoint diversity and institutional neutrality.

Institutional Neutrality Doesn’t Go Far Enough

It doesn’t matter if the college or university president refrains from speaking out about the controversial issues of the day if they’re the only one. After all, silence is a form of speech too, a fact that is sure to be noted by those who refuse to remain “neutral.”

Understanding the History of Free Speech

Free Speech Makes Free People – Fire’s Resource Library

A comprehensive resource for researching free speech, including individual rankings and reports for America’s colleges and universities

A Recent History of Free Speech on College and University Campuses

From New York University, this is a deep dive look at the recent news, updates, analysis, opinion, and legal cases regarding free speech on college campuses in America.

The Free Speech Project

From Georgetown University, this resource includes a Free Speech Tracker where visitors can get a glimpse into the first amendment controversies affecting public and private spaces around the United States.

The Free Speech Encyclopedia

Learn more about the first amendment’s five guarantees by searching this comprehensive resource from Middle Tennessee State University. Covers all aspects of free speech, on and off-campus.

Arguments for freedom: The many reasons why free speech is essential

Understanding why freedom of speech is so closely connected to freedom of thought is essential to preserving this vital liberty on campus.

The History of Free Speech – Timeline

From the Magna Carta to the present day, here are highlights in the fight to establish and protect freedom of speech in America

Free Speech Books

The First Amendment: Essays on the Imperative of Intellectual Freedom

Discussions of the First Amendment often focus on specific freedoms that the text cites, including religion, press, and assembly. But philosopher Tara Smith’s new book usefully reminds us that those particular freedoms—and many more that Smith and the other contributors examine—are united by a crucial principle: intellectual freedom. The book demonstrates that the free mind is indispensable for a free society.

Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate

For over a generation, shocking cases of censorship at America’s colleges and universities have taught students the wrong lessons about living in a free society. Drawing on a decade of experience battling for freedom of speech on campus, First Amendment lawyer Greg Lukianoff reveals how higher education fails to teach….

Trigger Warning: Is the Fear of Being Offensive Killing Free Speech?

From Amazon: “In this blistering polemic, veteran journalist Mick Hume presents an uncompromising defense of freedom of expression, which he argues is threatened in the West, not by jackbooted censorship but by a creeping culture of conformism and You-Can’t-Say-That.”

The Shadow University: The Betrayal Of Liberty On America’s Campuses

From Amazon: “The Shadow University is a stinging indictment of the covert system of justice on college campuses, exposing the widespread reliance of n kangaroo courts and arbitrary punishment to coerce students and faculty into conformity.”

Free Speech: A History from Socrates to Social Media

From Amazon: “In Free Speech, Jacob Mchangama traces the riveting legal, political, and cultural history of this idea. Through captivating stories of free speech’s many defenders … .Mchangama reveals how the free exchange of ideas underlies all intellectual achievement and has enabled the advancement of both freedom and equality worldwide.”

Free Speech Podcasts

So to Speak Podcast – Teaching Conservatism on a Liberal College Campus

Can a course on conservatism shake up the liberal status quo on campus? Tufts University professor Eitan Hersh presents his unique class on American conservatism and its impact on campus free speech and open dialogue. He discusses the challenges and opportunities of teaching conservative thought in a predominantly liberal academic environment.

Academic Freedom Alliance Podcasts

The Academic Freedom Podcast is the official podcast of the Academic Freedom Alliance, featuring conversations with leading scholars on the latest issues impacting academic free speech. It is available on most major podcasting platforms, including Apple, Spotify, Google, and Audible.

Big Brains Podcast – Defending Campus Free Speech in a Polarized Age

Free speech is probably one of the most polarizing public topics of debate. And those arguments only become more intense when it comes to free expression on college and university campuses. Should professors be allowed to say whatever they want? What about speakers being invited to campus? Who gets to say what is acceptable and unacceptable?

History Extra Podcast – Free Speech: A Brief, Contentious History

Jacob Mchangama explores the global history of free speech, discussing its ancient origins, staunchest defenders and biggest critics. Speaking to Matt Elton, he also reveals the ways the right to speak freely has been threatened at moments of social upheaval.

Law to Fact Podcast – First Amendment: Free Speech

Professor Allen Rostron, the Associate Dean of Students, William R. Jacques Constitutional Law Scholar and Professor of Law at the University of Missouri – Kansas City School of Law, explains the First Amendment as it relates to freedom of speech and provides an outstanding analytical framework for those challenged with answering a free speech question on an exam or the bar.

Clear And Present Danger – This Week in Free Speech with Jacob Mchangama

This Week in Free Speech is your weekly deep dive into the most cutting-edge global developments affecting the most important of human rights: freedom of expression. Each week your host Jacob Mchangama invites a guest with particular relevance or expertise to discuss a hot topic with global relevance for free speech, whether online or offline.

Free Speech Videos

Free Speech on Campus: Can It Be Saved? | What If?

In recent years, the foundational values of both free speech and open inquiry have increasingly come under assault at America’s colleges and universities, with many institutions maintaining formal policies that restrict constitutionally protected speech. Frederick M. Hess and J. Grant Addison of the American Enterprise Institute probe into the crisis and propose a policy that can protect free speech from both universities and the United States federal government.

Why Does Free Speech Matter

Should colleges encourage free speech on campus? Federalist Society student members and professors weigh in on the free speech debate and explain why they joined the Federalist Society.

Free Speech on Campus | Free Speech Unmuted

When can colleges and universities discipline students based on the content of their speech? When can they impose content-neutral restrictions on the time, place, and manner of demonstrations? Given that the First Amendment applies only to government operations, what rules apply to private institutions?

Is There Freedom of Speech In College?

Though we don’t think of them as government representatives the way we do police officers or legislators, administrators at taxpayer-funded universities are public officials bound by the first amendment. When they censor speech on campus, they violate students’ rights.

The Three Rules of Hate Speech: Free Speech Rules

Here are three rules you should know about “Hate Speech” and the First Amendment.

The Ten Rules of Free Speech and College Students: Free Speech Rules

Lots of recent free speech debates have come up at colleges. Here are ten rules for how freedom of speech applies to college students.

Free Speech Surveys and Reports

Free Speech on College Campuses: The Ultimate Guide

How free is speech today on public university and college campuses – and how free should it be? Surveys report that with social media’s megaphone and with students often focused on what should not be said in the name of fairness, diversity and inclusion, the landscape for free speech on college campuses has changed.

Is College Worth It?

As economic outcomes for young adults with and without degrees have improved, Americans hold mixed views on the value of college.

College Student Views on Free Expression and Campus Speech 2024

This Knight Foundation-Ipsos report continues the investigation into the complexities of free expression on campus and highlights the evolving views of students.

The Hyperpoliticization of Higher Ed

Higher education has recently made a hard left turn—sixty percent of faculty now identify as “liberal” or “far left.” This left-leaning supermajority is responsible for rampant discrimination against non-left job seekers, both conservatives and moderates, and the trend is likely to worsen. This essay predicts that faculty who embrace this shift do so at their own peril, as they invite greater democratic oversight from a public which realizes higher education no longer aligns with its values and educational priorities.

American College Student Freedom, Progress and Flourishing Survey

The American College Student Freedom, Progress and Flourishing Survey is an annual survey conducted by the Sheila and Robert Challey Institute for Global Innovation and Growth. The survey assesses student perceptions about viewpoint diversity and campus freedom; human progress and beliefs about the future; and student attitudes toward entrepreneurship, capitalism and socialism, and how college is influencing their views.

Buckley Institute Annual Surveys

Since 2015, the Buckley Institute has conducted an annual survey of American college student attitudes on free speech and related issues. The college student disillusionment with free speech is growing at an alarming pace. More students are intimidated from speaking freely and more students are willing to intimidate others from speaking freely than at any time in the history of the survey. In many ways, America’s undergraduate student body seems to be abandoning the very ideas that made America the great country it is today.