Harvard finishes last in FIRE free speech rankings for second year straight, U of Virginia gets first

Harvard University finished last for the second year running in the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression’s (FIRE) “College Free Speech Rankings.” 

The report, released on Thursday, marks the fifth consecutive year in which FIRE has released its rankings. At the bottom along with Harvard are Columbia University and New York University. All three of the schools received “Abysmal” speech climate ratings. 

Last year’s FIRE rankings marked the first time that a school–Harvard–received an “Abysmal” rating.

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“Simply put, Harvard has never performed well in FIRE’s College Free Speech Rankings, finishing below 75% of the schools surveyed in each of the past four years,” FIRE said last year. “Harvard, which on paper commits to protecting free speech, has a dismal record of responding to deplatforming attempts — attempts to sanction students, student groups, scholars, and speakers for speech protected under First Amendment standards.”

Other schools at the bottom with a “Very Poor” rating include the University of Southern California, Syracuse University, Barnard College, and the University of Pennsylvania. 

Addressing the reasoning behind the poor performance of the schools at the bottom, FIRE wrote in its report that the schools in question “experienced a number of controversies in which expression was censored, suppressed, or shouted down. For instance, since 2020 we documented 20 speech controversies at Harvard that resulted in a deplatforming, a scholar sanction, a student sanction, or an attempted disruption of an event.”

“In the same time frame, we documented 14 such incidents at Columbia, 12 at NYU, 10 at Penn, and 7 at Barnard. These incidents collectively resulted in 13 deplatformings, nine attempted disruptions, 23 scholar sanctions, and 18 student sanctions. During the same time period, we documented only five instances of the bottom five schools vigorously defending free speech,” FIRE continued. 

“Some of the nation’s most lauded higher ed institutions are failing miserably in upholding First Amendment protections. Often these schools set the tone for the wider higher ed ecosystem, so it is imperative that they address these issues lest this failure drag the rights of a whole new generation of college students down with it,” FIRE Chief Research Advisor Sean Stevens said. 

The University of Virginia ranked first, followed by Michigan Technological University and Florida State University.

In response to a Campus Reform request for comment, a Florida State University spokesman sent a Friday article from FSU News announcing FSU’s spot at the top of the rankings. 

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“Florida State University cherishes intellectual debate and encourages a culture of meaningful civil discourse among students and faculty,” school President Richard McCullough said. “We are proud that FIRE continues to rank FSU as one of the top colleges in the nation and the best in Florida for free expression.”

According to its website, FIRE’s mission is “to defend and sustain the individual rights of all Americans to free speech and free thought — the most essential qualities of liberty.”

Campus Reform has reached out to FIRE and the named universities for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.