Free speech and college are supposed to go together like chips and salsa, or cake and ice cream. But lately, it’s more like someone poured picante on your rocky road.
Two events – the Oct. 7 anniversary of Hamas’ barbaric attack on Israel, and the U.S. presidential election on Nov. 5 – will test campus speech policies, new and old. So this is a good time to examine how strongly America’s colleges protect speech.
That’s exactly what the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression has done with its 2025 College Free Speech Rankings. FIRE surveyed 58,807 students spanning 257 colleges earlier this year, asking about their experiences and perceptions regarding free expression.
The news isn’t great.
Just three of the 257 had campus speech climates that FIRE deemed “good,” while three were rated “abysmal” and four others “very poor.” Six were not even ranked, instead given a “warning” because their policies “clearly and consistently … prioritize other values over a commitment to freedom of speech.”
Locally, the list included Georgia Tech (fifth overall), Georgia State (45th), the University of Georgia (141st) and Emory University (154th). This quartet’s average score of 53.4 ranked seventh among the 30 states that had at least three schools on the list.
Oddly, Georgia Tech stood out because it didn’t stand out – for good or bad – on any one metric. It was no better than 30th but no worse than 148th on any particular component.
Georgia State rated sixth nationally for students’ comfort in expressing their ideas. But somewhat ironically, it was only 185th for students’ acceptance of “blocking entry, shouting down and physical violence in preventing on-campus speakers from speech activity at their college.”
UGA was ranked No. 6 for students’ belief that the administration supports free speech. But it fell to a dismal 225th for “openness,” defined as a student’s “perceived ability to have conversations about difficult topics on campus.”
Emory rated lowly all around. Its highest ranking was 85th for “openness,” and its lowest was 243rd for belief in the administration’s support of free speech.
Going back to the national data, some interesting patterns emerge.
Overall, the median score was 47.38. Among the 147 public schools included, the median score was 50.43. But among the 104 private colleges, it was just 43.41.
More elite schools tended to fare worse: None of the eight Ivy League schools was rated as high as “average,” and the group accounted for two of the three “abysmal” ratings; the median score among the Ivies was 33.75.
Speaking of conferences – after all, it is college football season – the Atlantic Coast Conference came out first among the “Power 4” leagues with an average score of 50.88. The Southeastern Conference was next, at 49.38, followed by the Big 12 at 48.86. Last, by a wide margin, was the Big Ten at 39.4.
FIRE also reported a “majority viewpoint” of liberal or conservative for each school. Unsurprisingly, only 25 of the 251 ranked schools had a majority viewpoint that was conservative (including none in Georgia).
But some may be surprised to learn that majority-conservative campuses tended to have higher ratings. The median among the conservative campuses was 50.74, compared to 46.89 for liberal schools.
Sadly, that reflects only a slightly less hostile attitude toward free speech more broadly on the right vs. the left: FIRE also released an opinion poll in August reporting that 61% of Democrats and 52% of Republicans “at least slightly agree that the First Amendment goes too far in the rights it guarantees.” The organization called the result “a dictator’s fantasy.”
College ought to be a place where young people become even more educated about the Founders’ efforts to prevent tyranny in our land – starting with protections for speech and other freedoms. On the current trend, it may instead be where they learn just to keep their heads down and their mouths shut.