REPORT: More Than Six Million American College Students Denied Free Speech Rights

At least 6.4 million students enrolled in America’s colleges and universities have their First Amendment rights restricted.

A new report from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) “surveyed publicly available policies at 366 four-year public institutions and 105 of the nation’s most prestigious private institutions.” The report, based on the policies of these 471 institutions, found that the vast majority of institutes either heavily restricted or marginally restricted students’ free speech rights.
FIRE uses a three-tier system to indicate how much a college or university respects the First Amendment. A “red light” means the institution has at least one policy that clearly and substantially restricts students’ free speech rights in a way that is a clear threat to personal freedom without any need for interpretation. A “yellow light” means students have some free speech rights but may have vaguely worded policies that could restrict those rights, such as a policy banning “verbal abuse,” because of how subjective “abuse” could be. A “green light” is given to institutions that do not “seriously imperil speech.” It doesn’t mean the school is a beacon of free expression, but just that FIRE has not found any policies that present serious threats to free speech.