Students reject dissent, revealing colleges’ failure to uphold free speech

If college students are seen sporting riot gear on campus this fall, no one should blame them: In all likelihood, campus events and even classes will be canceled this semester due to the actions of some of their fellow students.

Perversely, these days the more expensive the college or university and the more “elite” its reputation, the more chilled its environment for open discourse and constructive disagreement.

These once-revered universities, still generally respected for reputations earned in earlier eras, are ironically among the worst offenders when it comes to stifling independent thought — so much so that they’re torpedoing trust in academia’s credibility as a center for objectivity and discovering truth.

Perhaps they shouldn’t be considered elite at all.

These disturbing dynamics punctuate the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression’s 2025 College Free Speech Rankings, our annual survey of American colleges’ commitment to free thought and free speech.

Some of the nation’s most prestigious schools — Columbia, NYU, Penn, Barnard — rank at the very bottom of the list, while Harvard, perhaps the most prestigious university in the world, has the inglorious distinction of finishing dead last for free speech for the second year in a row.

Other elite schools such as Princeton, Northwestern, Cornell, Brown, UCLA, Georgetown and Berkeley have a similarly abysmal commitment to free speech, our survey found, all scoring well below average.

Campus responses to the Israel-Hamas conflict vividly demonstrated the failures of our higher education institutions to safeguard free expression.

In our survey, 55% of students said they find it difficult to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on campus — a record high for any issue since our rankings began in 2021.

Some of the chaos on campuses during the last school year was a direct result of administrators stifling free speech protected under the First Amendment.

And while the vast majority of pro-Palestinian protesters’ speech is unequivocally protected by the First Amendment, it’s worth noting that pro-Palestinian protesters are responsible for every campus shout-down FIRE has recorded since Oct. 7.

Our study also exposes administrators’ long-running casual disregard for nurturing free expression or inculcating those values into the student body.

A majority of students said that six of eight hypothetical offensive speakers should “probably” or “definitely” not be allowed on campus.

For example, roughly two-thirds of current students oppose allowing a speaker on campus who expressed unpopular views on transgender people or Black Lives Matter.

At least half of students surveyed oppose allowing speakers who expressed controversial views on Israeli security, abortion, the police or the Catholic church.

It’s troubling that even a handful of students believe that speakers with whom they disagree have no place on campus.

But when a majority of students believe this, it signals something even worse: We have failed to teach an entire generation to respect the dialogue across differences that lies at the heart of our institutions of higher learning and our society’s marketplace of ideas.

Our survey also detected a rise in the percentage of students who believe that the use of violence to stop a campus speech is acceptable in at least some circumstances, rising from 27% last year to 32% this year — nearly a third of all students.

 Again, the percentage of students who believe violence is justified to stop speech should be zero.

That nearly a third of all students today say otherwise is a disaster.

It’s valid to ask if these are the values we want “elite” universities to instill in our young people — and parents and alumni should wonder if instilling this mentality into students is worth paying a fortune for.

The failure of our institutions to serve as centers for rigorous debate, open discussion and thought experimentation — and the way these trends undermine our universities’ credibility as truth-seeking institutions — should trouble us all.

Perhaps we must redefine what we mean by “elite” universities in the first place: An “elite university” should prepare students to think critically, ask hard questions, take seriously the possibility they might be wrong, question dogmas both on and off campus, and resist groupthink with reason and evidence.

When these institutions fail to uphold or even seriously explain the profound philosophy that undergirds freedom of speech and academic freedom, they fail in their fundamental mission.

If elite schools are to regain their stature, they need to foster intellectual humility, instill enthusiasm toward dissent and discussion rather than fear of it, and cultivate citizens who see it as an intellectual duty to seek out and engage with smart people with whom they disagree.

Then, and only then, can they truly claim to be elite.

Greg Lukianoff is president and CEO of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a free speech nonprofit.