Free speech on many college campuses is under siege. It could come as a disinvitation to a speaker such as George W. Bush at Ohio State in 2002— (you can view a list of 536 such disinvitations at https://www.thefire.org/research-learn/campus-disinvitation-database)—or as a faculty member dismissed for conduct that is perceived as disturbing or threatening by a student or a group, or scholars dismissed for their views. If you’ve ever had concerns about expressing an opinion because of worry about your audience, then you’ve felt the pressure to self-censor, affecting your freedom of speech.
To give structure to ‘proper’ speech and conduct, many campuses incorporate speech codes. Such speech codes include the 1974 Berkeley code restricting student political expression, which was overturned by the courts the following year. Similar codes were imposed at University of Michigan, University of Wisconsin Madison, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Virginia, and Stanford, to name a few.
Yet, freedom of speech on campuses, at least in the State of California, is protected by the ‘Leonard Law’, section 94367 of the California Education Code, which states student speech and communication is fully protected under the First Amendment of the US Constitution and Section 2 of Article 1 of the California Constitution extending to all postsecondary institutions within the state. This means that such forms of censorship as ‘viewpoint restraint’ (banning certain viewpoints the censors disagree with); prior restraint (preventing publications or events that might conflict with the censors views); harassment of parties with conflicting views; and defamation of those with opposing opinions are not supported.
To contend with all the issues surrounding freedom of speech on campus the organization FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education) was founded in 1999 FIRE rates campuses on a scale from "red light," meaning the school has at least one policy that "clearly and substantially restricts freedom of speech," to "green light," meaning the school has no policies that restrict speech.
The 2022-2023 College Free Speech Rankings surveyed 45,000 students across 208 US colleges and universities to measure student perceptions covering their comfort expressing ideas, tolerance for speakers with opposing views, disruptive behavior when encountering opposing viewpoints, openness to discuss controversial topics, and dealing with the school administration, along with administrative behavior towards supported and sanctioned scholars and disinviting controversial speakers to the campus.
The top four ranked college for freedom of speech include:
1. University of Chicago with a score of 77.92
2. Kansas State University ((76.2)
3. Purdue University (75.81)
4. Mississippi State (74.72)
The speech climate at all four was rated ‘good’. It’s no accident that Chicago leads the list. In 2014 it inaugurated the ‘Chicago Principles’ expressing commitment to free expression as ‘an essential element of the University’s culture.’
The bottom four for freedom of speech include:
203. Columbia University (9.91—more than 4 standard deviations below the mean)
202, University of Pennsylvania (14.32)
201 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (18.6)
200 Georgetown University (20.28)
The complete rankings can be found at https://rankings.thefire.org/rank/school. A side note, there are a number of filters to see specific schools or groups of schools (e.g. the Ivy League—with Dartmouth the league’s best facilitator of free speech at 83 and Harvard and Yale at 170 and 198)
The key factors separating the top four and the bottom four, according to the Survey, were the school’s performance in ‘comfort expressing ideas,’ ‘administrative support,’ ‘administrative behavior,’ and ‘tolerance difference.’ Columbia’s ranking is a direct product of its low score in administrative behavior and disruptive conduct.
The quick summary of the findings arrives at the conclusion that ‘a school’s administration has a large impact on the culture of free speech on campus. Schools where the administration has taken a clear and firm stance in favor of freedom of speech did well in the rankings.’ Take note when selecting where you might wish to spend your four years. Lastly, should questions arise affecting your freedom of speech, don’t hesitate to fire them at FIRE.