NEW YORK, NEW YORK – OCTOBER 25: Pro-Palestinian students at New York University walk outside … [+]
I received an email a few days ago from a student I had advised when she first applied to college 2 years ago. He attended a progressive, highly selective liberal arts college, just what he wanted in the process. He had decided to transfer, telling me he expected to find open-minded, liberal students looking to learn about their world. Instead, he encountered a level of dogmatism that was shocking and disappointing.
This schism, between free speech ideals and dogmatic views, predates the October 7 attacks and their aftermath. Recent events, however, have brought this to light. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Expression (recently changed from “Education” to more expansive), FIRE, ranks colleges according to how open they are to the free expression of ideas. Theirs rankings See the published free speech codes of about 250 colleges, as well as individuals’ comfort with expressing ideas, tolerance of speakers, disruptive behavior, administrative support, and transparency.
Only four colleges are rated “good”: Michigan Tech, Auburn, University of New Hampshire and Oregon State. Among the 20 with “poor” scores or worse are Boston College, Middlebury, Yale, Dartmouth and Northwestern. At the bottom, the three rated “very poor” are Georgetown, Pennsylvania and South Carolina. There is only one college with a score of 0 and in the “abysmal” category: Harvard.
The conflict in the Middle East has brought to light tensions that have been simmering for years. Clashes between protesters took place in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; and Indiana University. At Stanford, four weeks after a group of students staged a “Sit-in to Stop Genocide,” a group of Jewish and Israeli students set up their tent 15 feet apart. Three Tulane University students were attacked during a clash between pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian protesters near campus.
In the past, college campuses were largely insulated from divisive national political fervor, largely because a relatively small percentage of college students describe themselves as politically conservative, and even fewer at the most selective colleges. This issue, however, is not easily understood or categorized. As Zach Greenberg, Senior Program Officer at FIRE commented US news: “I think that a lot of these protests and a lot of the backlash to the protest is entirely due to the inability or perhaps the unwillingness of students to recognize that this is a fine-grained and complex issue. A healthy culture of free speech requires people not to demonize those they disagree with, to understand that the world is not divided between good and bad – and that these complex issues exist and people can be on different sides of them.”
This may have a profound effect on college campuses in the future. Administrators are more aware than ever of the need to remain neutral in events occurring off campus. The rise in anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic threats and attacks has shattered many students’ sense of safety on campus.
Perhaps the most lasting change will be the perception of colleges as places that value free expression and tolerance of diverse ideas and ideals. Time will tell if this is a passing fad or if there will be a realignment of colleges based on their tolerance of dissenting views. It will be interesting to see if this affects the 2024 college admissions cycle and beyond.
