As we will show below, 2023 was the worst year on record for deplatforming attempts and successes, and 2024 is unfortunately already looking like it can top it.

The last couple of weeks alone have been absolutely terrible, and it’s no surprise why. Campuses exploded in the wake of Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7, with attempts to deplatform speakers coming in about equal numbers from both sides. However, as of this moment we are not aware of a pro-Palestine event being disrupted by pro-Israel students. The most recent examples we have are all pro-Palestinian protestors shutting down pro-Israel speech. ...

This has been happening for a long time, and it will keep happening until universities grow backbones. They have to start disciplining students who organize disruptions and the deplatforming of speakers, and they must expel students who engage in violence on campus. Greg and our FIRE colleague Angel Eduardo published a piece in The Free Press last week arguing this very point.

Anyone still claiming that this is no big deal, that it’s just a fluke or flare-up, and that it is not at all the norm in higher ed today has to willfully ignore the data — and we at FIRE have a lot of data on this.