The Academic Freedom Podcast #5 with FIRE

A conversation with researchers at FIRE about the free speech climate on college campuses

A new episode of The Academic Freedom Podcast from the Academic Freedom Alliance is now available. Subscribe through your favorite platform so you don't miss an episode.

This episode of the podcast features my conversation with two research scholars at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE). Sean Stevens and Komi German were the principal authors of the new database and report on "Scholars under Fire." The report assembles information regarding over 400 incidents of faculty being targeted for sanction by their employer as a consequence of their controversial speech. It pulls back the lens a bit on college free speech fights and gives some broader perspective on who is targeted, by whom, and for what kind of speech. The report and our conversation highlights that universities are being pressured to suppress faculty from across the political spectrum, with students being a significant but hardly the only source of such pressure.

We also discuss the findings of the new FIRE report on a survey of student perceptions of free speech on their campuses and FIRE's college free speech ranking.

We talk about how the reports were constructed, the findings, their implications, and what they tell us about the health of a free speech culture on college campuses.

Listen to the whole thing.

Comments

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

If you want mainstream, educated, influential America to take you seriously, Prof. Whittington, you should stop associating with right-wing separatist organizations that enlist the likes of Bonnie Kerrigan Snyder to promote hypocritical backwardness.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

If I read the chart correctly, FIRE lists Hillsdale as the third-best campus for free speech in America.

When you associate with those guys, Prof. Whittington, you're wearing a clown suit in addition to that unconvincing libertarian drag.

[NathanHale]

This is a very hot topic now. We live in such a world that it is difficult to talk about freedom of speech or its lack, and information is very valuable today. I finished writing my paper on this issue, now my dissertation is at the proofreading stage. By the way, if such a service is relevant to you, then pay attention to https://uk.edubirdie.com/dissertation-proofreading-service because many experienced colleagues advised it to me. I also tried to do a research between students, but I paid more attention to academic groups.