The great shame of American colleges and universities has been the way they have allowed freedom of speech to be curtailed. Officials have allowed raucous students to shout down anyone they disagree with and have established speech chilling “bias-response teams.” For that, they have frequently been sued (nearly always losing) and gotten tons of bad publicity.

Are things improving?

In today’s Martin Center article, Grace Hall points to some evidence that they are.

She writes:

A new report from the Lumina Foundation and Gallup indicates that the free-speech environment has improved on campuses across the country. While speech protections are still not perfect, 75 percent of students earning a bachelor’s degree believe their campus officials do an “excellent” or “good” job of fostering free speech. This number includes 73 percent of Republicans and 75 percent of Democrats.

That sounds good, but when it comes to some hot issues, particularly relating to Israel, many students still feel uncomfortable speaking their minds.

Matters may be improving, but college officials still have much to do to instill in students a mindset of tolerance and free inquiry.