KU was ranked in the bottom 10% of schools nationally when it comes to free speech, but what does that rating actually mean?
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) has released its 2026 report on free speech on college campuses. Unsurprisingly, KU received a failing grade with a score of 55.7/100. This grade places them amongst the bottom 25 colleges out of 257 surveyed nationwide.
For reference, FIRE gave the highest score, 80/100 (B-), to Claremont McKenna College and their lowest scores, 43/100 (F) and 41/100 (F), to Columbia University and its sister school Barnard College respectively, based on their negative speech environments or lack thereof. Kansas State received a 70/100 (C-), placing them as the 25th highest-ranked school and in the top 10% of schools surveyed.
Across the board, KU would have kicked itself out if it was a student. It received a C in disruptive conduct, a D+ in openness, a D in comfort expressing ideas, and Fs in self-censorship, administrative support, and political tolerance. No single category for KU was above the bottom 50 schools surveyed. Curiously, student testimony only included conservative perspectives about how students felt concerned about voicing their opinions during the election, how they felt social pressure to vote a certain way, and concerns around “when a professor is forcing liberal views on students.” Survey data also indicated that students are split on whether administration protects free speech rights but that students generally feel comfortable discussing most topics on campus.
FIRE cited 3 free speech controversies, namely two cases of “students under fire” and one “deplatforming”, that influenced their rating of KU. First, KU fired former Grace Pearson Scholarship Hall (GP) Proctor Anthony Alvarez for speaking up against KU’s policy to remove gender-inclusive housing assignments (GIA) from GP. Second, KU cracked down on student expression against changes to housing policy, including sanctioning individual students and unequally enforcing policy against students putting up messages, all despite statements in support of student efforts.
Third, FIRE cites a disruption of an event hosted in February of 2024 by KU Hillel, KU Chabad, and Students Supporting Israel Jayhawks to platform Gal Cohen-Solal, who was in Israel near where the Hamas offensive launched on October 7th, 2023. About 25 protestors interrupted the event and were escorted out of the room shortly thereafter. At the event, Cohen-Solal suggested that “the only solution for us to live together — us and the Palestinians — is without Hamas” and that “we really want to live in peace, but we cannot live in peace when… Hamas exists.” He argued that “Israel was taking a methodical approach to the war in order to minimize civilian casualties” and that “the blame for many of the civilian deaths in Gaza lay with Hamas.” KU Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) argued that Cohen-Solal is an illegal settler and that platforming him legitimizes the ongoing genocide against the Palestinians.
Founded in 1999, FIRE describes their mission as “defend[ing] and promot[ing] the value of free speech for all Americans in our courtrooms, on our campuses, and in our culture.” While they position themselves as a non-partisan institution and have spoken out against censorship of groups like GPeeps for GIA, the majority of their funding comes from conservative groups and foundations, including Kansas’ own Charles Koch.
While the FIRE report is indeed concerning, their methodology is rooted in a deeply flawed understanding of neutrality. Although FIRE prioritizes a balance of perspectives, citing the supposed ratio of “liberal” and “conservative” students at KU of 1.17:1 as a good balance, it is unclear how FIRE calculated this ratio. They praise neutrality and openness, regardless of content, speaking positively of KU’s adoption of the Chicago Statement, which advocates for “free” and “open” exchange in the marketplace of ideas. FIRE also factors in the ways in which speech is conducted, evaluating all forms of disruption and deplatforming, even the idea that such tactics could theoretically be permissible, as negative.
Free speech is no doubt important, but FIRE is wrong about what that actually means and looks like. A university that is not equally comprised of “liberals” and “conservatives” or a university ok with loudly calling out a genocide perpetrator is not necessarily a university that suppresses free speech. Likewise, a university that allows their students to say most anything they want without consequence is not one that fosters free speech. The solution to the problems with free speech at American universities will not be solved by preventing departments taking positions on issues that pertain to their expertise or by letting more bigots spew their vitriol and hatred without consequence, nor will it be through censorship marketed as freedom.
FIRE’s value-neutral understanding of freedom prioritizes allowing individuals to say anything “peacefully”, regardless of the content of the speech. FIRE would sooner defend someone engaging in stochastic terrorism than they would the protestor yelling over them. Moreover, while the act of being allowed to say something is significant in itself, words translating into action also matters. While it might look good on FIRE’s scorecard to allow students to voice their demands to their university’s administration, if the response from the target is silence, the act of being able to speak alone falls short of measures sufficient for action. To escalate protest, though, may violate university policy or, in FIRE’s eyes, infringe on someone else’s right to free speech, which is unacceptable. Instead of knocking the University for breaking up SJP’s protest of Cohen-Solal, they knocked SJP for “disruption”. Ations that move beyond freedom of speech toward demanding action are incompatible with FIRE’s understanding of freedom.
Popper’s paradox of tolerance states that those who are tolerant of intolerance are themselves intolerant. As such, those who platform those who seek to bring harm to others are themselves supporting that harm, willing to sacrifice the wellbeing of others for the comfort and ideological correctness of themselves. For a public institution like KU, their decision to allow talking heads like the late Charlie Kirk, and Riley Gaines, to speak freely on campus while simultaneously arresting their own students protesting injustice will not be rectified by welcoming both forms of expression.
Speech and the freedom to engage in it is not neutral ground, nor can it be. The act of being able to shout something into the void does not inherently make you more free, nor does ensuring there is an equal proportion of far-right and center-right ideas on campus. We must reject the equivocation of fascist and anti-fascist speech. The most powerful way we have to express our freedom through our speech is to proclaim loudly, clearly, and collectively our desire for a better, less Koch-funded world.
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