Are colleges facing a free speech crisis?
From the picket lines of the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War, to social media posts surrounding the Israel-Hamas conflict today, expressing free speech — and how to better define it — continues to test higher education decision-makers.
Updated: 11:00 PM CDT Apr 15, 2024
The increase in student-led protests at U.S.-based colleges and universities surrounding the October 2023 Israel-Hamas conflict has brought free speech on campus, back into popular discourse. After the actions and suspensions of some student groups led to televised congressional hearings and then the resignation of two elite university presidents, defining and outlining free speech on campus appeared to be at a stalemate. Groups such as, The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, or FIRE are attempting to keep the dialogue going. FIRE is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that works on a national scale to spread awareness regarding free speech rights on college campuses. “We’re seeing large amounts of students professing self-censorship and the culture of free speech being deteriorated on college campuses,” Zach Greenberg said, the senior program officer within campus advocacy at FIRE. “And so while the law remains solid, we do worry about how it’s being applied and how universities actually are defending students’ free speech rights.” By expressing and exercising their free speech rights, student-led groups have consistently influenced federal legislation especially during the 1960s and 1970s. Most notably, the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and Nixon signing the 26th Amendment in 1971, which lowered the voting age from 21 to 18-years-old at the federal level. In the 1960s, the Civil Rights movement was amplified by courageous students such as Claudette Colvin, Diane Nash, the Little Rock Nine, and the Greensboro Four, and several student-led and founded groups such as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Black Panther Party. However, protests reached a fever pitch on May 4, 1970, with the Kent State Massacre, in which four students were shot and killed by Ohio State National Guardsmen. Less than two weeks later, on May 15, 1970 at Jackson State in Mississippi, law enforcement fired into a crowd, killing a pre-law student and a local high school student, who was on campus at the time. Following these national tragedies, the Nixon administration assembled a task force to study campus unrest on a national scale. What resulted was a 400-plus page magnum opusEditSign titled, “The Report of the President’s Commission on Campus Unrest,” which analyzed the Kent State and Jackson State tragedies, the history of campus protests stretching back to the American Revolution, and suggestions for students, faculty, and law enforcement moving forward. Although, the Nixon administration hesitated to implement the commission’s suggestions from the lengthy tome, today’s students aren’t limited by formal case studies to share their thoughts and reach a wider audience. Whether students speak formally through congressional hearings (that are subsequently shared on YouTube to view beyond traditional airtimes) or informally through social media posts, clarifying free speech for students in the digital age may continue to be a challenging, but a necessary, discussion. “Students aren’t really having the kind of discussions that they were having, perhaps 10 or 15 years ago,” Greenberg said. “The first step to defending your rights is knowing your rights.”
The increase in student-led protests at U.S.-based colleges and universities surrounding the October 2023 Israel-Hamas conflict has brought free speech on campus, back into popular discourse. After the actions and suspensions of some student groups led to televised congressional hearings and then the resignation of two elite university presidents, defining and outlining free speech on campus appeared to be at a stalemate.
Groups such as, The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, or FIRE are attempting to keep the dialogue going. FIRE is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that works on a national scale to spread awareness regarding free speech rights on college campuses.
“We’re seeing large amounts of students professing self-censorship and the culture of free speech being deteriorated on college campuses,” Zach Greenberg said, the senior program officer within campus advocacy at FIRE. “And so while the law remains solid, we do worry about how it’s being applied and how universities actually are defending students’ free speech rights.”
By expressing and exercising their free speech rights, student-led groups have consistently influenced federal legislation especially during the 1960s and 1970s.
Most notably, the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and Nixon signing the 26th Amendment in 1971, which lowered the voting age from 21 to 18-years-old at the federal level.
In the 1960s, the Civil Rights movement was amplified by courageous students such as Claudette Colvin, Diane Nash, the Little Rock Nine, and the Greensboro Four, and several student-led and founded groups such as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Black Panther Party.
However, protests reached a fever pitch on May 4, 1970, with the Kent State Massacre, in which four students were shot and killed by Ohio State National Guardsmen. Less than two weeks later, on May 15, 1970 at Jackson State in Mississippi, law enforcement fired into a crowd, killing a pre-law student and a local high school student, who was on campus at the time.
Following these national tragedies, the Nixon administration assembled a task force to study campus unrest on a national scale. What resulted was a 400-plus page magnum opus
Although, the Nixon administration hesitated to implement the commission’s suggestions from the lengthy tome, today’s students aren’t limited by formal case studies to share their thoughts and reach a wider audience.
Whether students speak formally through congressional hearings (that are subsequently shared on YouTube to view beyond traditional airtimes) or informally through social media posts, clarifying free speech for students in the digital age may continue to be a challenging, but a necessary, discussion. “Students aren’t really having the kind of discussions that they were having, perhaps 10 or 15 years ago,” Greenberg said. “The first step to defending your rights is knowing your rights.”
