When my son, Anthony, began looking at colleges, the environment they offer for free-wheeling debate was an important consideration. Respect for freedom of speech and thought at colleges has been on the ropes for a while and worsened over the past year. Some schools, like the ones to which my son applied, rank well when it comes to tolerance for diversity of ideas, but others are the absolute pits.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), a civil liberties group that began with a focus on academia, just published a rogues’ gallery of institutions of higher education that anybody with an independent mind should avoid.
“Each year, FIRE bestows a special dishonor upon a select group of American colleges that go above and beyond in their efforts to trample expressive freedom. These are the schools that stopped at nothing to crush faculty rights, destroy student expression, and leave guest speakers in the dust,” the group announced on February 2. “For that, we owe them their just reward: A spot on our exclusive ’10 Worst Colleges for Free Speech’ list.”
The dishonored schools are: Hamline University, The Pennsylvania State University*, Collin College, Texas A&M, University of Pennsylvania, Emerson College, Emporia State University, Tennessee Tech, University of Oregon, and Loyola University.
[Georgetown gets a “Lifetime Award” for an Ilya Shapiro tweet imbroglio you have to read to believe. Good God, Save your money and your kid’s minds. Choose wisely. ~ Beege]
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