Latest News and Commentary: National

Excerpt: Cold winters, hot wings, and “a place where you’ll make a real difference.” That’s what University at Buffalo offers its students — but not those who want to pursue their passions by participating in certain student groups. A new student government policy threatens to derecognize dozens of student groups solely for their affiliation with outside organizations. FIRE calls on the university to walk back this egregious violation of students’ First Amendment right to freedom of association.

Excerpt: A new report concludes that the administration of Hamline University violated the academic freedom of Professor Erika López Prater after a student complained of having been offended by Professor López Prater’s presentation of two images of the Prophet Muhammad during an online session of her art history class in October 2022.

The AAUP’s committee of inquiry also found that Professor López Prater’s decision to display the historical images was not only justifiable and appropriate on both scholarly and pedagogical grounds but also protected by academic freedom.

Excerpt: An Illinois teacher is out of a job after a group of parents accused her of “child grooming” for including an LGBTQ-themed book in a reading assignment for eighth grade students in the town of Heyworth. The book is one of nearly a hundred of all different subjects and themes provided to students back in March as part of the assignment, and Heyworth Chief of Police Michael Geriets seized dozens of books during his sprawling, weeks-long investigation.

After meeting with the aggrieved parents, however, it was Chief Geriets himself who contacted the principal and said he was “officially looking into the allegations” and “was proceeding with a fact-finding investigation to determine whether or not a crime was actually committed.”

Excerpt: If only out of pure self-interest, we shouldn’t just be willing to hear the arguments of those with whom we disagree, we should be eager to. Without letting them speak, you can’t know where they stand, and, to paraphrase John Stuart Mill’s famous quote from On Liberty: If you don't know the other side's argument, you really don't know much of your own, either.

Of course, the problem is that many people think they already know everything they need to know. In fact, they’re certain of it. When you have moral certainty, you can presume the authority to shut people down.

Excerpt: A former psychology professor this week sued the University of California system, claiming that its use of diversity statements in hiring represents “a thinly veiled attempt to ensure dogmatic conformity throughout the university system.”

John D. Haltigan, a former assistant professor in the department of psychiatry at the University of Toronto, sought to apply for a tenure-track position at the University of California at Santa Cruz that was posted last July and remains open. Haltigan argues in the lawsuit that Santa Cruz uses diversity statements to screen out job applicants who do not hold specific views, “including the view that treating individuals differently based on their race or sex is desirable.”

Excerpt: When Raegan Zelaya and Shua Wilmot decided to include their pronouns at the end of their work emails, they thought they were doing a good thing: following what they viewed as an emerging professional standard, and also sending a message of inclusivity at the Christian university where they worked.

But their bosses at Houghton University, in upstate New York, saw the matter very differently.

Excerpt: In a victory for academic freedom, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill announced its decision to not implement recommendations made by the School of Medicine’s Task Force to Integrate Social Justice into the Curriculum that would condition tenure and promotion on faculty commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Excerpt: Most observers expect that later this year the U.S. Supreme Court will rule that race-conscious admissions programs at universities are unlawful. A ruling of this kind has the potential to clarify the tangled jurisprudence regarding affirmative action in higher education. It also has the potential to begin to reduce the concern and confusion about diversity besetting American institutions.

In oral arguments last fall, Justice Clarence Thomas observed that he had heard the word “diversity” used many times, but he did not have a clue what it meant. Thomas is not alone. It often obfuscates more than it clarifies. Some of this is intentional, but much is the result of confusion about the nature of diversity itself.

Excerpt: Last weekend, PEN America—which is dedicated to defending and promoting free expression around the globe—canceled a panel in which dissident writers, including Russian journalists who have long been deeply critical of Putin’s regime, were going to present their work.

It is also easy to see why the event’s organizers felt that it was impossible for them to “side with” their Russian over their Ukrainian invitees. And yet Masha Gessen, who was slated to moderate the panel, was right to resign as Vice President of PEN’s board of directors in protest against a decision that, however hard-wrung and well-intentioned, is deeply illiberal and profoundly immoral.

Excerpt: The fact that Martinez’s letter, written in response to her students’ constrained conception of expressive freedom, is being hailed as a watershed moment — even as dozens of states consider or implement bans on critical race theory — reveals a great deal about the complex and often confused nature of our national conversation about freedom of speech on (and off) campus.

Many of these strident voices — so concerned about the dangers left-wing students and faculty pose to the freedom of speech — have remained curiously silent about the use of state power to suppress speech in the form of bans on so-called “critical race theory.”