What Could Be Termed as Genuine Free Speech Disappearing from Campuses
Every year the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) releases its annual survey results assessing free speech on college and university campuses.
The "2026 College Free Speech Rankings" was recently published, and the results are not sanguine.
They're disturbing.
The survey included 68,510 student respondents from 257 colleges and universities.
The average overall score was 58.63, which was a failing grade.
In fact, 166 of the 257 schools got an F for their speech climate; only 11 received a C or higher. Here’s a sample of the state of free speech on campus.
“The percentage of students saying it is acceptable to shout down a speaker, block entry to a campus speech, or use violence to stop a campus speech all increased since last year and are at record highs.”
The school which is number-one in the country allowing free speech to rein is Claremont McKenna College, followed by Purdue University and the University of Chicago.
The worst is Barnard College, a women’s school affiliated with Columbia University. Columbia is the second most intolerant of free speech, followed by Indiana University.
Catholic schools that were included in the survey are Georgetown, Duquesne, Fordham, DePaul, Dayton, Marquette, Villanova, Notre Dame, Loyola University, Chicago and Boston College.
All received a grade of F. Loyola and Boston College were in the bottom ten worst schools in the nation, both Jesuit run.
The topics that ignite the greatest intolerance on campus — subjects that are considered too hot to discuss — are the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, abortion, the presidential election of 2024 and transgender rights.
The left, which controls most schools, is virulently against Israel and Donald Trump, and strongly favors abortion and transgender rights. In other words, conservatives find it hard to speak freely on most campuses.
What was perhaps the most alarming finding was the percentage of students who find violence to be an acceptable response to stop campus speech — 34% are okay with it.
This is up from 24 percent in 2021. Who do they want to stop? It is not left-wing speakers — they are always welcome.
For example, students were asked about six controversial topics and whether they thought a speaker should be allowed to discuss them on campus.
Three-in-four said no one should be allowed to discuss whether "Black Lives Matter is a hate group" (76%), and the same proportion (74%) said no one should be allowed to discuss whether "Transgender people have a mental disorder."
This is striking given that some Black Lives Matter leaders taught its followers to hate white people (they also ripped off the organization to such an extent that it barely exists), and a number of the most prominent psychiatrists in the nation are convinced that transgender people have a mental disorder.
Yet such speakers are treated as if they belonged to the Flat Earth Society.
Interestingly, one of the six controversial topics the students were asked about was whether "The Catholic Church is a pedophilic institution."
While 62% said such speakers should not be allowed on campus, the entry begs the question — why was it included in the first place?
We know that four percent of the priests between 1950 and 2002 had an accusation made against him for sexually abusing minors, but most of the abuse was committed by gay men, not pedophiles.
Thus did the survey seriously misrepresent this topic to the students.
When students were asked if they felt comfortable disagreeing with a professor about a controversial topic, only 41% said they did. A majority (52%) said they felt uncomfortable expressing their views on a controversial political topic during an in-class discussion.
From what we know, they were obviously conservatives.
The greatest intolerance for free speech was experienced by those who expressed themselves on social media.
Two-in-three (66%) said they felt uncomfortable discussing an unpopular political opinion to their fellow students on a social media account tied to their name.
In short, reasoned debate does not exist on most campuses.
This is precisely what Charlie Kirk died defending — the right to speak freely in colleges and universities. Lucky for him he dropped out of college.
No wonder he spoke so clearly and persuasively.
He was never corrupted by tyrannical professors.
Dr. Bill Donohue is president and CEO of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. A former Heritage Foundation Bradley resident scholar, he's authored 11 books on civil liberties, social issues, and religion. He holds a Ph.D. in sociology from New York University. His new book, "Cultural Meltdown: The Secular Roots of Our Moral Crisis," was released in June, 2024. Read Bill Donohue's Reports — More Here.