FIRE's Policy Priorities

Protecting the free speech rights of college students and faculty

FIRE’s fight for expressive rights has expanded beyond campus, but we place a particular emphasis on our traditional defense of student and faculty rights. FIRE works with lawmakers to pass FIRE’s model legislation to protect free speech and academic freedom protections in higher education. 

Enacted Campus Free Speech Statutes

FIRE’s Legislative and Policy Program promotes legislation and policy that protects our right to freedom of speech, while combating measures that would restrict the exercise of that crucial right.

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These bills include:

• FIRE’s Campus Free Expression Act (CAFE), which protects campus speech at public schools by prohibiting unconstitutionally restrictive “free speech zones,” affirming the right to engage in spontaneous expression, and requiring schools to adopt content- and viewpoint-neutral policies for room reservations and security fees. 
• FIRE’s Intellectual Freedom Protection Act, which protects academic freedom by prohibiting the use of viewpoint-based loyalty tests and political litmus tests in college admissions, hiring, and promotion decisions. 

With FIRE’s help, dozens of states have enacted these and similar bills. We also support bills to protect student journalism and defend students’ associational rights. 

On the federal level, FIRE supports the Respecting the First Amendment on Campus Act — which passed the House of Representatives in 2024 — to improve protections for free speech rights on public schools campuses nationwide. 

Beyond these measures, FIRE regularly works with legislators to draft, refine, and pass bills to protect campus free speech and academic freedom in other ways. 

Protecting speech in the AI era

AI is a tool people use to communicate ideas, access information, and generate knowledge. Regardless of the medium involved, the First Amendment protects these forms of expression, and so the First Amendment protects every American’s right to build and use AI platforms.

Artificial intelligence and freedom of speech

How should we think about speech rights in the age of artificial intelligence and advanced robotics?

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FIRE fights legislation that burdens the right to develop, use, or interact with AI platforms in expressive ways. This includes legislation that:

• Regulates the content generated by AI platforms
• Limits users’ ability to freely and anonymously access AI platforms, including by requiring age verification
• Restricts the sharing of AI-generated content
• Bans or restricts the development of new AI platforms
• Imposes liability on AI developers for wrongdoing by a user

Defending free speech online

Millions of Americans use social media platforms and other websites to read and share information and talk to people around the globe. FIRE fights legislation that restricts Americans’ right to use social media platforms or allows the government to decide how we can communicate online. This includes legislation that:

• Restricts the content that social media platforms can host
• Imposes a “duty of care” on social media platforms to “protect” users from the effects of content posted on the platform, including the Kids Online Safety Act
• Regulates the design of social media platforms
• Restricts access to social media platforms, including by requiring age verification or banning users based on age
• Repeals or limits the protections of Section 230

FIRE also supports legislation to protect free speech online. That includes legislation to:

• Deter jawboning by requiring transparency when the government contacts social media platforms, like FIRE’s model SMART Act and the JAWBONE Act
• Fight foreign government censorship of Americans’ speech on U.S. platforms

Fighting content-based censorship, wherever it occurs

Legislators often introduce bills that restrict speech related to hot-button cultural and political issues of the day. FIRE fights this legislation no matter the political direction the censorship is coming from. 

Recent examples include bills to:

• Ban drag performances
• Create hotlines for the public to report “biased” speech to the government
• Restrict speech related to Israel and Palestine
• Limit public university professors from teaching about race or LGBTQ issues
• Force employers to conduct trainings about “hate speech”

Securing college students’ due process rights

Ensuring due process for students facing disciplinary sanction remains central to FIRE’s work on campus. We advocate for several critical process rights, including: 

• Timely and adequate written notice of the charges, 
• Access to all the evidence in an institution’s possession, 
• A meaningful presumption of innocence, 
• A full hearing with impartial fact finders, 
• Active participation of an advisor, and,
• A meaningful right to appeal.

Enacted Campus Due Process Statutes

FIRE supports legislation that promotes fair and reliable non-academic campus disciplinary hearings on college and university campuses.

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FIRE’s model Student and Administration Equality Act guarantees these critical due process protections to students at public institutions of higher education who face serious non-academic disciplinary proceedings. We work with lawmakers to pass this legislation, and we regularly intervene to oppose bills that would enshrine an unfair process or weaken existing protections. 

FIRE also monitors federal Title IX regulations to ensure they require a fair disciplinary process for both complainants and respondents. Our engagement helped produce the current Title IX regulations, which carefully balance the rights of all students.

READ MORE: FIRE defends 2020 Title IX regs

And more…

• Supporting legislation to create accountability for government actors who violate First Amendment rights, including protecting attorney’s fees for civil rights plaintiffs and allowing victims to sue federal officials who violate their rights
• Opposing bills that erode protest rights
• Supporting state and federal anti-SLAPP laws, particularly the Uniform Public Expression Protection Act

Please contact FIRE’s legislative team to discuss the intersection of First Amendment and public policy.