A nonprofit whose stated mission is to safeguard Americans’ civil rights recently drew attention to the freedom of student expression in universities across the country, with Texas institutions rating poorly overall.
The latest report from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) suggested that just one Texas university ranked favorably in its commitment to free speech principles: Texas A&M University.
According to FIRE’s report, institutions of higher education “should only ban speech and conduct that is not protected under First Amendment standards, such as harassment and true threats.” This means schools should not “limit discourse to only the inoffensive and respectful,” the report says.
FIRE’s assessment looked at the written regulations on students’ free speech at 376 four-year public institutions and 113 private institutions across the country. The actual climate for free speech seen in practice was not considered.
Each institution’s speech code was given a rating based on the following:
- Green light: student expression is not put into jeopardy by speech code
- Yellow light: student expression is easily suppressed by speech code
- Red light: student expression is clearly violated by speech code or speech code is not publicly accessible
FIRE flagged some institutions for placing other values above their commitment to protecting student expression in their written regulations. These institutions were slapped with a “warning” for prospective students and staff.
FIRE noted in its report that both red light (20% of schools) and green light (12.9% of schools) ratings increased this past year. In Texas, Rice University, the University of Houston-Downtown, and the University of Texas at Dallas were given red light ratings while a warning was issued to Baylor University.
However, yellow light ratings were most prevalent nationwide, with 320 schools, or 65.4% of those assessed, falling within this category. In Texas, several institutions fell within this category, including Texas Southern University, Texas Woman’s University, University of Texas at Arlington, University of Texas at Austin, and Southern Methodist University.
Texas A&M’s unique green light status within this report can be explained by its receiving guidance from FIRE in 2018 and 2019.
“They worked on policies on demonstrations, bias, and reporting, some renditions from the residence halls and there was an internet usage they fixed up to better protect free speech,” explained Laura Beltz, FIRE director of policy reform, according to The Texan.
Many university campuses have made headlines for allegedly antisemitic incidents in the aftermath of Hamas’ terrorist attack on Israel in October, as covered in The Dallas Express. The U.S. Department of Education is currently investigating dozens of universities over such allegations, which were filed as complaints under Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits “discrimination involving shared ancestry.”
