Stories of the week
Although I grew up in the Connecticut suburbs, New York City has always been the center of my world. My parents made New York their home when they came to this country, and I was born there. Even when I lived overseas or in the San Francisco Bay Area, if someone said they were going to “the city,” I was always the obnoxious New York-centric guy thinking, “Oh my God, you’re going to Manhattan?” This past summer, I moved back to New York, bringing me full circle.
So the destruction of the World Trade Center has never felt abstract to me. Neither have the thousands of people who went to work that beautiful September morning and never came home.
Free Speech on Campus a Year After Charlie Kirk (WSJ) by Sean Stevens & Robert Shibley
This year’s rankings saw slight decreases in the number of students who supported illiberal actions (violence or mob censorship) to stop a campus speech. That’s encouraging. But when 30% of students said it’s sometimes acceptable to use violence to prevent a disfavored speaker from addressing students, that’s far too high.
This week in ERI
Why some schools rose and others imploded in FIRE's 2027 College Free Speech Rankings
Today FIRE released its annual College Free Speech Rankings. This year, 261 schools were ranked and almost 63,000 undergraduates were surveyed. The rankings combine student survey responses with information from our databases — which track deplatforming attempts
This week in Expression
Australia’s top bureaucrats want protection from ‘harmful’ social media videos by Sarah McLaughlin
Sure, ridicule is not a pleasant experience, and it can be miserable and hurtful. There’s no denying that. But satire, parody, mockery, and insult have also long been used by citizens to challenge state power. Treating those methods as harms in themselves in order to justify censorship is itself a threat to a free and open society.
Why would someone post that? by Greg Harold Greubel & Jacob Gaba
Florida wants colleges out of politics. There’s just one problem by Ryan Ansloan
Florida wildlife officials searched critics’ private records by Isabelle Brito
This week on So to Speak
This week on So to Speak, FIRE EVP & host Nico Perrino moderated a debate between Stanford Law Professor Jud Campbell and Marjorie Deane Professor of Journalism at New York University Stephen Solomon on what the First Amendment’s free speech clause meant to the founding generation—and what that history can tell us today. They explore the founders’ understanding and practice of free speech, the Alien and Sedition Acts, the strengths and limits of originalism, and how historical meaning should shape modern doctrines such as New York Times v. Sullivan.
And FIRE also hosted an after-hours webinar digging into our new College Free Speech Rankings:
This week in FIRE’s blog
“Even for those schools perpetually at the bottom of the rankings, it’s never too late to right the ship,” said FIRE Vice President of Research Angela C. Erickson. “Only 40% of students said that it was ‘extremely’ or ‘very’ clear that their administration protects free speech on campus. College administrators need the humility to reform policies and systems that leave students afraid to speak their minds, and the courage to shut down deplatformings and disruptions when others try to silence them. A great education requires both: the freedom to speak and the opportunity to hear ideas you might otherwise never encounter.”
FIRE in the press!
How Charlie Kirk’s Murder Chilled Speech at Utah Valley University (Reason) by Matthew Harwood
When we surveyed UVU students again during the first half of 2026, the free speech climate on campus hadn’t recovered. Over 50 percent of UVU students said that they had self-censored on campus at least once or twice a month. Before the assassination, it was 38 percent. Approximately 50 percent of students said they were uncomfortable expressing their views on controversial topics both in class and in common campus spaces, up from 40 percent before the assassination.
London Calling: Ronnie’s First Amendment Roundup
Federal district court stays use of federal civil service hiring question requiring applicants to identify presidential EOs or policy initiatives significant to them and how they will help with implementation, holding it is an improper test of political allegiance
A Massachusetts federal district court granted labor unions a stay in their challenge to a federal civil service job application question asking submitters to “identify one or two relevant Executive Orders or policy initiatives that are significant to you and explain how you would help implement them,” holding it violates the Administrative Procedure Act as contrary to constitutional right. Noting that “political belief and association constitute the core of … activities protected by the First Amendment,” such that “even a legitimate and substantial governmental interest cannot be pursued by means that broadly stifle fundamental personal liberties when the end can be more narrowly achieved,” the court held plaintiffs are likely to show the question is neither related to an important government interest nor narrowly tailored to promote it as the First Amendment requires.
The court recognized that in some cases political “allegiance” is a proper consideration if a hiring authority shows it is “an appropriate requirement for the effective performance of the public office involved,” but the court held that is not so with civil service positions, especially given an express statutory ban on making such employment decisions based on an employee or candidate’s “political affiliation.” The government claimed an important interest in “discretion in administering its hiring and recruitment processes,” but, the court said, it failed to articulate “why or how political allegiance is an appropriate requirement for the effective performance of civil service jobs,” and the challenged question appears “to call for the applicant’s personal political views.” Plaintiffs “are thus likely to succeed in showing that there is no legitimate governmental interest in inquiring into the political beliefs of applicants to federal civil service vacancies,” the court concluded. And it similarly held they are likely to succeed in showing the question is not narrowly tailored, insofar as it has appeared on thousands of applications for federal civil service vacancies, including jobs graded include “Air Traffic Control Specialist,” “Nuclear Materials Courier,” and “Crane Operator.”
A stay is thus appropriate as plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits and “[i]n the First Amendment context,” such likelihood “is the linchpin” of the analysis, and it means “irreparable injury is presumed.” Nor would a stay harm the government’s interests given the statutory prohibition against personnel decisions based on political affiliation, while plaintiffs’ members would likely suffer First Amendments harm, and the public, “in turn, has a strong interest in preventing … likely … unconstitutional conduct on the part of the executive.” (The court, however, denied the other relief sought in the form of a preliminary injunction, as it would effectively restrain hiring decisions in individual cases, and plaintiffs repeatedly emphasized this dispute does not concern individual personnel decisions, but rather fact contend the challenged question causes their members’ constitutional harm regardless of any ensuing personnel decision.)
International free speech stories of the week
Reform UK bans, admits, then bans MEE journalist from party conference (MEE) by Imran Mulla
Saskatoon council to consider action on graphic anti-abortion flyers (CBC) by Phil Tank
Even The Canary doesn’t deserve to be debanked (The Telegraph) by Silkie Carlo
Is another wave of debanking underway?
The Leftist news site The Canary reports that it has had two bank accounts frozen and that it now has no choice but to suspend its operation altogether. Many will be delighted that The Canary has stopped publishing – but you don’t have to support the platform to worry about the power that banks now exercise over our free speech and free press. The Canary’s shutdown should be a wake-up call to us all.
The Canary claims it was given no forewarning, no explanation and no opportunity to challenge the initial decision by Lloyds to freeze its account in June, just two weeks after it expanded into printing editions for newsagents. Now, the outlet reports that Metro Bank has frozen another account associated with the company, leaving them unable to operate.
Tribute of the week
This week, Andrew Wimsatt, a familiar face in liberty circles, was killed in what appears to be a random act of violence. I had the pleasure of meeting Andrew several times, and he was one of the very first FIRE supporters to purchase a ticket to our Soapbox conference in November. As many who knew Andrew better than me have already said, he was a gentle soul with an infectiously enthusiastic temperament and sunny disposition. Warm and funny and positive. This one really hurt. In addition to being an awful tragedy, it’s a terrible reminder that speech is not violence. Violence is something far more horrible. RIP Andrew. You will be missed.
