Harvard Named Worst US University For Free Speech

It’s not a number one ranking that most higher education institutions would boast about, but Harvard made the top of at least one list. It was deemed the worst of the worst in the U.S. for free speech. 

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) issued a new report Wednesday titled “2024 College Free Speech Rankings: What is the State of Free Speech on America’s College Campuses?” For Harvard, that state was a 0.00 score.

It was the only college in the U.S. to score an “Abysmal” rating for free speech. FIRE even noted the 0.00 total was “generous.”

That score was 11 points lower than the nearest school at the bottom of the list.

The organization’s director of polling and analytics, Sean Stevens, said that the bottom-feeder ranking was not a complete surprise. He told the New York Post, “We’ve done these rankings for years, and Harvard is consistently near the bottom.” 

Schools achieve their status through several factors. How the institutions stand up for free speech is considered along with how many of the faculty, students and guest speakers are targeted by leadership for exercising their free speech rights.

Colleges may earn bonus points if leaders support those whose freedom of speech is threatened. 

FIRE also works to determine student support for free speech. It engages in polling along with research firm College Pulse to measure how those being educated feel about open inquiry.

The survey spanned 55,000 current students from 254 schools, and the results were telling.

A staggering 56% of students worried about being canceled for saying something unpopular. Another 27% responded that violence was sometimes appropriate to stop certain campus speech. 

There was some backlash at Harvard against the suppression of free speech. Over 100 professors formed a coalition earlier this year called the Council on Academic Freedom, but that did not rescue the school from its horrific ranking. 

The group said that there is a crisis in universities and “confidence in American higher education is sinking.” 

Joining Harvard in the bottom five were the University of Pennsylvania, the University of South Carolina, Georgetown University and Fordham University.

The top five institutions for protecting free speech were Michigan Technological University, Auburn University, the University of New Hampshire, Oregon State University and Florida State University.