Colleges that respect students’ free expression outnumber those with restrictive speech codes for the first time in two decades, according to an annual report from a free-speech advocacy group.
In its report released Tuesday, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression praised 73 colleges and universities for respecting the constitutional freedom of students to express themselves on hot-button topics, a record high in its database dating back to 2006. That’s up by 10 schools since last year.
Over the same period, the Philadelphia-based group found that the number of campuses with severely restrictive “red light” policies on student expression fell from 98 to 72.
The report noted that state and federal backlash led more than a dozen colleges in states such as Florida, Maine, Alabama and Massachusetts to ditch anonymous bias reporting policies that threatened to discipline students for “microaggressions.”
“We’re seeing a lot of schools revising their most speech-restrictive policies at a time when there has arguably never been a brighter spotlight on them,” Ryan Ansloan, the report’s author, said in an email. “No school wants to be an outlier right now, with scrutiny coming from state governments, the federal government, alums, faculty, students and parents alike.”
Hundreds of campuses implemented bias reporting systems over the past decade to solicit anonymous complaints from students, faculty and others about offensive or unwanted campus speech, including social media satire.
Conservative students won lawsuits against several of the systems during the Biden administration after complaining that administrators threatened them with discipline for expressing unpopular opinions on affirmative action, transgender pronouns and the war in Gaza.
President Trump has since signed a flurry of executive orders supporting state efforts to purge gender identity lessons, mandatory faculty diversity oaths and race-based admissions and hiring preferences from colleges.
Universities that improved to a “green light” in FIRE’s latest report include Clemson, Vanderbilt, Virginia Commonwealth and Dartmouth.
Josh Blackman, a constitutional law professor at South Texas College of Law in Houston, said the list confirms that “the Trump administration’s efforts are working.”
“Universities realize that they cannot restrict free speech and the free exercise of religion, as they had in the past,” said Mr. Blackman, whose school was not included in the report.
Dartmouth was the only Ivy League school to earn a green light in this year’s report. FIRE upgraded the university from a yellow light in September after it revised a 2015 bias incident reporting policy that threatened to punish students over complaints about minor offenses such as “joke telling” and “stereotyping.”
In an email on Tuesday, a Dartmouth spokesperson referred The Washington Times to a FIRE press release praising President Sian Beilock for “fostering ’brave spaces’ and improving the state of discourse on campus” after taking over the school in 2023.
According to FIRE, 113 university administrations, systems and faculty bodies have modeled their free speech policies after a University of Chicago statement that First Amendment advocates consider a gold standard. They include American University, Columbia University and Smith College.
“Thanks to the work of FIRE itself, the policies that schools have on paper have been improving for years,” said Ilya Shapiro, a libertarian constitutional law scholar at the Manhattan Institute who earned his law degree from the University of Chicago. “The problem is uneven, asymmetric or non-enforcement.”
Not all schools improved in FIRE’s report. Among the 72 red light schools, the group flagged private Villanova University for a broad ban on student flyers that offend “good taste,” deny “respect for the dignity of individuals” or promote content “abusive or demeaning to specific social groups.”
Of the 490 schools included in FIRE’s database, eight earned a “warning” for not allowing speech that conflicts with their values. Those campuses ranged from conservative Christian institutions, such as Hillsdale College and Pepperdine University, to the public U.S. Military Academy at West Point and the U.S. Naval Academy.
Such schools have long insisted on their right to restrict public profanity, sexual activity and other expressions that contradict their missions.
The remaining 337 colleges earned a “yellow light” rating from FIRE over the past year for maintaining vague restrictions on student expression.
Several Ivy League schools — such as Harvard, Yale and the University of Pennsylvania — nevertheless improved from a red to yellow light after adopting policies of “institutional neutrality” toward politics.
“While we’re happy to see many of the problematic policies we’ve highlighted for years finally discarded, universities still need to take a more comprehensive reform approach to improve the overall climate for free speech,” Mr. Ansloan said.
Most schools named in the report did not respond to an email seeking comment.
Jim Henderson, president of Louisiana Tech University, thanked FIRE for upgrading his small public campus from a red to a green light after he worked with the group to clarify policies and “eliminate ambiguity.”
“This work was pursued not in reaction to any pressure from state or federal policy,” Mr. Henderson said in an email. “We simply wanted to ensure our policy environment clearly aligned with our commitment to free expression.”
Jonathan Zimmerman, a professor of the history of education at the University of Pennsylvania, insisted that progress has occurred despite the Trump administration, not because of it.
“At a moment when the Trump administration is brazenly attacking free expression via executive orders around DEI, Critical Race Theory, and more, it’s refreshing to see higher education rallying around its founding principle: everyone gets to have their say, even when it hurts,” said Mr. Zimmerman, whose Ivy League campus earned a yellow light after adopting a stance of institutional neutrality.
Ronald J. Rychlak, a professor of law and government and former associate dean at the University of Mississippi, said the report signals “a positive development” in higher education trends.
“I believe that the campus climate has changed for the better,” said Mr. Rychlak, whose public university has consistently earned a green light rating. “There’s been an awakening to the harm caused by restrictive speech regulations and the self-censorship they create.”
• Sean Salai can be reached at ssalai@washingtontimes.com.