Aggressive protests of campus speakers criticizing transgender athletes in women’s sports are shutting down free speech at the nation’s top colleges and universities, an advocacy group reports.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, which tracks censorship efforts on both sides of the ideological divide, published a free speech ranking of 248 colleges and universities Wednesday.
The Philadelphia group based its rankings on an annual survey of 55,102 students that it commissioned academic researcher College Pulse to conduct in the spring, at the end of the 2022-2023 academic year.
In the survey, 45% of students deemed it “acceptable” to some extent to block other students from attending a campus talk, up from 37% last year. Another 27% said it was acceptable on some occasions to use violence to stop a speech, up from 20% last year.
Sean Stevens, FIRE’s director of polling and analytics, attributed the shifts to intensifying pushback among left-leaning students against a recent slew of right-leaning campus gender lectures. Most featured former NCAA swimmer Riley Gaines, activist Candace Owens and Daily Wire commentators Matt Walsh and Michael Knowles.
“There have been a number of controversies over speakers expressing views on transgender rights, and several have sparked violence,” Mr. Stevens told The Washington Times in an interview. “Endorsing the use of violence against anyone is troubling, even if you yourself aren’t engaging in it.”
During the last academic year, conservative student groups on dozens of campuses invited Ms. Gaines and others to argue that swimmers born male should be barred from women’s sports because their sex assigned at birth gives them unfair competitive advantages. The issue has become a political flashpoint ahead of the 2024 election.
Mr. Stevens pointed to the example of a mob of angry San Francisco State University protesters who blocked Ms. Gaines from leaving an event for several hours in April.
The former University of Kentucky swimmer hit the campus lecture circuit after tying with Lia Thomas — a transgender University of Pennsylvania swimmer — in the 200-meter freestyle competition at the 2022 NCAA swimming championships.
FIRE launched the annual survey in 2020 to help prospective students and faculty compare the free speech climates on campuses. The group uses the responses to rank schools according to a free-speech methodology that also weighs their number of censorship attempts and how administrators handle them.
Among all students surveyed this year, the group noted that 56% “expressed worry about damaging their reputation because of someone misunderstanding what they have said or done.” Another 26% reported feeling pressure to avoid discussing controversial topics in class.
According to FIRE, the transgender debate surged to join several older topics that college students flagged as taboo.
At least one-third of students in the top five and bottom five schools in the rankings flagged “abortion,” “gender inequality,” “gun control,” “police misconduct,” “racial inequality,” “religion,” “sexual assault” and “transgender rights” as topics they found it difficult to discuss openly and honestly on their campuses.
Elite Harvard University ranked dead last in the report, earning the lowest score possible. The University of Pennsylvania, University of South Carolina, Georgetown University and Fordham University rounded out the bottom five institutions on the list, respectively.
According to the FIRE report, “an alarming” 81% or 26 out of 32 attempts at these five campuses prompted the successful de-platforming of a student group, professor or invited speaker.
On the flip side, Michigan Technological University ranked first in this year’s free speech rankings. Auburn University, the University of New Hampshire, Oregon State University and Florida State University rounded out the top five, respectively.
On those five campuses, FIRE noted that only 22% or 2 out of 9 censorship attempts succeeded, with administrators resisting student calls for cancellation.
For example, when the Michigan Tech student government moved to bar Turning Point USA from hosting conservative speaker Brandon Tatum on campus, administrators intervened and allowed the event to happen in March.
While all five of these schools are public universities, FIRE noted that the private University of Chicago had the highest average ranking in all four surveys from 2020 to 2023.
Most schools in the FIRE ranking did not respond to a request for comment.
In an emailed statement, Michigan Tech noted its adherence to the University of Chicago principles of free expression that “more than one hundred other public and private universities across the country” also follow.
“We value our students, faculty, and staff and we respect their ability to converse on a wide variety of topics,” the Michigan Tech statement read.
At the public University of South Carolina, spokesperson Jeff Stensland challenged the report’s sample size and methodology.
“The FIRE report and the ranking table produced in no way reflects the reality of our campus or the University of South Carolina’s unwavering commitment to free speech and the First Amendment,” Mr. Stensland told The Times, pointing to school statements supporting free expression.
The report lists four successful attempts to silence free speech at USC since 2020. They include the 2021 cancellation of a talk on the Ethiopian civil war by Norwegian academic Kjetil Tronvoll after left-wing critics protested online that his opposition to the Ethiopian government is racially based.
According to FIRE officials, the survey included at least 250 students from each large public and private university and around 150 students from each smaller liberal arts college.
In Washington, Mr. Stevens said Georgetown failed to bolster free speech protections after suspending libertarian constitutional law scholar Ilya Shapiro last year in a controversy over social media posts.
Reached for comment on the FIRE report, the Rev. Stephen Fields, a Jesuit priest who teaches theology at the Catholic school, said its fourth-to-last ranking affirmed his recent classroom experiences.
“For the first time in 30 years, the students told me that they were highly reluctant to talk with other students,” Father Fields said. “If they disagree, they fear being ‘canceled.’”
At Penn, Lia Thomas made history last year as the first transgender athlete to win an NCAA Division I competition in the 500-meter freestyle event. Administrators have meanwhile investigated tenured law professor Amy Wax several times for expressing conservative views on class, gender and race issues.
Jonathan Zimmerman, a Penn professor of education and campus free speech advocate, said he’s “ashamed” the Ivy League research university performed so poorly in the FIRE rankings.
“I only wish that more of my colleagues would share that sense of shame,” Mr. Zimmerman told The Times.
• Sean Salai can be reached at ssalai@washingtontimes.com.
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