Colleges are purging restrictive speech codes under the Trump administration and removing “bias reporting” policies that solicited anonymous complaints about microaggressions, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression reports.
The Philadelphia-based free-speech group flagged a record-low 66 schools, or 13.2% of all institutions, with a “red light” rating for written policies stifling campus protests, speaking events and online discussions. That’s down 1.5 percentage points from last year, and reverses two consecutive years of increases under the Biden administration.
At the same time, FIRE’s 20th annual report awarded a “green light” to 76 schools — 15.4% of 493 institutions surveyed — for placing no limits on First Amendment rights. That’s up from 73 last year and marks the second consecutive year of green lights outnumbering reds.
“Pressure from many state legislatures, as well as the reelection of Donald Trump and subsequent federal investigations, lawsuits, and shifts in research funding, have prompted internal review at many schools,” said FIRE senior program counsel Ryan Ansloan in a statement. “We hope this will translate to taking the side of free speech when controversies arise.”
FIRE started rating university speech codes with green, yellow or red lights in 2006, when just 2.4% of schools earned a green light and 97.6% received a yellow or red light.
Another 342 schools, or 69.4% of all campuses this year, received a yellow light for retaining vague policies.
This list included 10 schools that improved from red to yellow after working with FIRE to ease restrictions: Clark University, Colgate University, Furman University, Haverford College, St. Olaf College, Utah State University, Western Michigan University, the University of Washington, the California Institute of Technology and the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
Three others improved from yellow to green: the University of Alabama, the University of West Florida and the University of California, Davis.
The nonprofit foundation noted that 120 schools have now endorsed a 2015 statement that University of Chicago faculty published supporting radical free expression.
Reaction to the report was mixed among higher education analysts.
Jonathan Zimmerman, an education history professor at the University of Pennsylvania, said the findings show campuses rolled back “some” restrictions they imposed amid anti-Israel protests during the 2023-2024 academic year.
“Part of the reason might be the elimination of DEI offices, which sometimes inhibited what students and faculty could say,” said Mr. Zimmerman, whose Ivy League institution professes political neutrality. “But we should also remember that the Trump administration has placed new barriers to speech via its executive orders around race and gender.”
Both UPenn and the University of Georgia received a yellow light for maintaining vague speech policies that could be used to stifle expression, unchanged from last year.
Timothy Cain, a University of Georgia higher education professor, insisted that free expression is “under greater assault” under the Trump administration due to increased pressure from conservative lawmakers to limit race and gender teaching.
“Classroom speech is being constrained by reactionary legislation and institutional policies, books are being banned, and curricula are being reshaped for partisan political, not educational, reasons,” Mr. Cain said. “The ratings, like all such ratings, are selective and don’t capture the very real threats to and limitations on classroom and academic speech.”
The Washington Times reached out to the Trump administration for comment.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon on Monday sent a letter urging university presidents and governing bodies to recommit themselves to free expression.
“Institutions must encourage an ethic of free speech and foster a thriving marketplace of ideas, guided by open inquiry and honest debate,” Ms. McMahon wrote. “The collision of opposing viewpoints is necessary to advance learning and prepare students for the duties of citizenship.”
Warning signs
Despite positive trends, three schools fell from yellow to red ratings in FIRE’s report: Bard College, Tulane University and SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry.
FIRE has criticized all three campuses for policies insisting on subjective standards of “civility” in debate that could suppress protected speech.
Private schools, which have more legal room to restrain expression that conflicts with their values, have long underperformed in FIRE’s annual report.
This year, 9.8% of public schools surveyed earned red lights, the first time that share has dropped below 10% in 20 years. By comparison, 24.6% of private schools earned red lights, roughly 1 in 4.
FIRE flagged another 10 private campuses, or 2% of all institutions, as “warning schools” that do not guarantee free speech at all. They include Pepperdine University and Hillsdale College, which have long defended their rights as Christian institutions to impose morality codes and ban anti-Christian programs.
Peter Wood, president of the conservative National Association of Scholars, criticized FIRE’s “absolutist position on free speech” as an obstacle to campuses restraining liberal protesters who occupy public spaces, shout down speakers they dislike and turn public debate into “a screaming match.”
“There must be ’rules of the road,’” said Mr. Wood, a former associate provost at private Boston University.
“It is rather easy to see why our universities are eliminating their formal speech codes,” he added. “Many of them are simply outsourcing their enforcement of illiberal doctrines to the student mob.”
Others warned that the retreat of restrictive speech codes doesn’t mean schools are enforcing radical openness to debate.
The free-speech group PEN America reported that lawmakers introduced fewer “education censorship bills” in the past year only because states such as Texas and Iowa already restricted diversity, equity and inclusion programming friendly to LGBTQ students and first-generation immigrants.
“We remain concerned that the shuttering of DEI offices on campuses across the country and mounting attacks on programs — including Women’s & Gender Studies, American Studies, and other ethnic and area studies programs — chill the climate for free expression,” said Amy Reid, director of PEN America’s Freedom to Learn program.
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