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The Seven Best Colleges For Free Speech

It is crucial to give credit where credit is due for colleges that uphold freedom of speech, so here is the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education's list.
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President and CEO, Foundation for Individual Rights in Education

President and CEO, Foundation for Individual Rights in Education
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When I first started at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), I wanted to make sure that we wouldn't just aggressively police violations of freedom of speech -- we also would credit universities that protected the First Amendment despite calls for censorship. Unfortunately, I soon learned that a school could be very good at defending the speech of one speaker while censoring a different student or faculty member the school disagreed with or simply disliked. Finding the best and most consistent schools hasn't been easy. Nonetheless, it is crucial to give credit where credit is due, so FIRE has decided, for the first time ever, to name its top colleges for free speech.

While a truly "scientific" list would be impossible, ideal schools for the list were those that earn a "green light" rating from FIRE -- meaning that their policies at least nominally protect speech that would be protected by the First Amendment--and that have not committed a serious incident of censorship (that we know about) for at least several years. (FIRE rates about 400 colleges across the country according to a system of red, yellow, and green "lights" on the basis of their speech policies, not specific cases of censorship.)

I'm sure that, as with our 12 Worst Colleges for Free Speech list from earlier this year, this list will provoke some interesting discussion. If you know of serious recent violations by any of the Lucky Seven schools, please let us know in the comments. And please feel free to nominate schools that you believe are good defenders of free speech. (I do recommend looking them up at thefire.org first. Serious cases of censorship pop up surprisingly and with shocking frequency, and there's a reason why--so far--we have only been able to name seven schools.) The Lucky Seven are listed in no particular order.

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Arizona State University(01 of07)
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The largest public college in the country by enrollment, Arizona State University clinched its position on this list earlier this year when it eliminated its last questionable policy on expression. ASU also earns a top spot because it is unusual for us to hear so few claims of free speech violations from a school the size of a small city. (credit:Wikimedia Commons)
Dartmouth College(02 of07)
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Probably one of our more controversial choices, Ivy League school Dartmouth has been a "green light" school since 2005, when the college abolished its speech code by withdrawing two open letters to students that suggested students could be punished for hurting the "feelings" of others. If your free speech ends any time a student can claim hurt feelings, no speech is safe, so we welcomed the withdrawal of this implied policy. While Dartmouth has been involved with serious controversies about governance since then, there have been no serious free speech cases that we know of at Dartmouth in many years. (credit:Wikimedia Commons)
The College of William & Mary(03 of07)
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The College of William & Mary is a shining example of how dedicated students and principled administrators can work together to uphold student rights without compromising other university values. Between 2007 and 2009, student and former FIRE intern Braum Katz worked with FIRE and W&M to make crucial revisions to its Bias Incident Reporting System policy, its Internet posting policy, and its discrimination policy to clearly separate protected student speech from harassment and other unprotected behavior. Throughout the process, the administration's cooperation set W&M apart from its peers as a university attuned to student input regarding fundamental rights. (credit:Wikimedia Commons)
University of Pennsylvania(04 of07)
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The University of Pennsylvania has come a long way since the "Water Buffalo Affair" drew national attention to abuses of student rights on campus in 1993 (the incident, chronicled in The Shadow University, was one of the cases that inspired the founding of FIRE). The speech code used against the student in that case was abolished in 1995, and Penn was one of the first schools to earn a "green light" rating. Penn has demonstrated its commitment to free speech more recently by, for example, declining to punish a student who wore a suicide bomber costume to a Halloween party in 2006, despite calls for censorship. (credit:Wikimedia Commons)
Carnegie Mellon University(05 of07)
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Even though Carnegie Mellon University is a private university not bound by the First Amendment, it promises students that it "values the freedoms of speech, thought, expression and assembly--in themselves and as part of our core educational and intellectual mission. If individuals are to cherish freedom, they must experience it. The very concept of freedom assumes that people usually choose wisely from a range of available ideas and that the range and implications of ideas cannot be fully understood unless we hold vital our rights to know, to express, and to choose. The university must be a place where all ideas may be expressed freely and where no alternative is withheld from consideration." A lot of private universities make noble promises like this but fail to follow through. CMU does make good on its promiseby maintaining healthy speech policies (since 2007) and, so far as we know, hasn't violated this promise in practice for several years. (credit:Wikimedia Commons)
University of Tennessee-Knoxville(06 of07)
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The University of Tennessee-Knoxville has proven that it is serious about maintaining its "green light" status. The administration has been especially responsive to all of FIRE's free speech concerns and has acted quickly to revise any policy ambiguities or mistakes that would threaten or chill student speech. (credit:Wikimedia Commons)
University of Virginia(07 of07)
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Within three months of taking office, University of Virginia President Teresa Sullivan's administration worked with FIRE to eliminate all four of UVa's speech codes last year. Dean of Students Allen Groves led the initiative, reforming UVa's "Just Report It!" "bias reporting" system to promise students that protected speech will not be subject to official discipline or investigation, even if it is reported. The Women's Center removed unconstitutional examples of harassment from its website, such as mere "innuendo" and unwanted flirting. And the computer use policy no longer prohibits messages that "vilify" others or "inappropriate" mailing list messages. UVa also has been standing up against a sweeping document request relating to the Virginia Attorney General's fraud investigation of former professor Michael Mann, arguing that it threatens academic freedom. (credit:Wikimedia Commons)

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