Stanford, Georgetown, U. of Florida listed among 10 'worst free speech colleges' in U.S.

Feb. 2 (UPI) -- The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education released its annual rankings on Wednesday of what it says are the worst U.S. colleges and universities for free speech.

Founded in 1999, the civil liberties organization aims to "defend and sustain" individual rights of students and faculty at American institutions of higher education -- including freedom of speech and association, due process and religious liberty.

FIRE has been producing the annual "worst free speech" schools list since 2011, including both public and private institutions. Schools that appear on the list are considered to be "the worst-of-the-worst in campus censorship."

"Public colleges and universities are bound by the First Amendment; the private colleges on these lists, though not required by the Constitution to protect student and faculty speech rights, explicitly promise to do so," the organization said in a statement Wednesday.

The ten campuses on the list this year are Boise State University, Collin College in Texas, Emerson College in Boston, Georgetown University, Linfield University in Oregon, Stanford University, Tarleton State University in Texas, the University of Florida, University of Illinois Chicago and University of North Carolina.

This year, FIRE also handed Yale University, pictured, its lifetime censorship award, for "repeatedly violating the free expression and academic freedom rights of students and scholars." File Photo courtesy Pixabay

The schools are listed in no particular order.

Often referred to as the "Harvard of the West," FIRE said that Stanford made the list for withholding a law school student's diploma two weeks before graduation over a satirical email.

For Linfield College, FIRE said the school fired a tenured professor without due process after he spoke out about cases of misconduct on campus.

The University of Florida, it said, blocked three political science professors from testifying as expert witnesses in a lawsuit challenging new voting restrictions in the state.

This year, FIRE also handed Yale University its lifetime censorship award, for "repeatedly violating the free expression and academic freedom rights of students and scholars."

FIRE argued that Yale administrators "rationalized the outcome, defended the censorship or ignored the problem entirely."

Oftentimes, FIRE provides legal and financial aid to students or staff who have been censored by an institution's administration or faculty.

Click here to see the full list of FIRE's 10 Worst Colleges for Free Speech in 2022.