Lawmakers see different threats to campus speech — but the same stakes

Republicans and Democrats often struggle to find common ground. But a recent congressional hearing revealed a shared conviction: free speech in higher education is essential to our nation’s future.

To be sure, committee members diverged in important ways. Republicans focused on threats to campus free speech from university administrators, while Democrats challenged that framing, highlighting threats from state governments and the Trump administration. But from the outset of this hearing — “Speech or Silence? The Future of the First Amendment in Higher Education,” held by the Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Development — one throughline emerged: the importance of the First Amendment on campus.

“College students have clear rights on campuses,” Chairman Burgess Owens said. “Public universities should uphold the First Amendment, and private universities should abide by their own stated free speech policies.” He added, “Protecting free expression is essential not only to the educational mission of our schools, but also to the continued strength of our nation.”

Subcommittee Ranking Member Alma Adams made similar points, arguing that “every student is entitled to the full protection” of both the First Amendment and Title VI. She later added, “A campus where people are afraid to speak is not a place of learning. It’s a place of silence.”

These points echo a long line of constitutional law, which leaves no room for the view that First Amendment protections should apply with less force on college campuses. Indeed, the Supreme Court warned in its seminal case on academic freedom that teachers and students must remain free to inquire, study, evaluate, and gain new maturity and understanding, or else “our civilization will stagnate and die.”

Other members reinforced these points. Rep. Kevin Kiley warned that without the First Amendment, we lose the ability to have the “discourse and debate on which a healthy democracy depends.” Rep. Mark DeSaulnier cited the historical importance of free speech, noting that Thomas Jefferson kept a bust of Alexander Hamilton in his home specifically because they disagreed so vigorously.

As often happens, differences emerged in the details, particularly around the nature and scale of threats to free speech, as well as how to address them. Yet even some of these differences reflected common principles. For example, members of both parties highlighted free speech concerns related to diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI. Democratic Reps. Adams and Suzanne Bonamici argued that federal anti-DEI efforts are chilling protected speech on campus, including by pressuring institutions over what faculty may say or teach. Republican Rep. Bob Onder argued that DEI policies in medical education can act as an ideological gatekeeping mechanism.

FIRE has previously written about both concerns. And while the representatives sharply disagreed about what is threatening campus speech, their concerns share an important foundation: without the free exchange of ideas, effective education is impossible. Bonamici, even while arguing that the threat comes from the administration rather than campuses themselves, acknowledged that college campuses “of all places, are where we should have the free exchange of ideas.” Onder argued that “doctors, nurses, and medical students have to be able to ask questions and challenge assumptions” because “free speech is the foundation of evidence-based medicine.”

With shared principles like these in mind, we can find solutions that protect free speech for everyone on campus, regardless of their views or who is attempting to censor them. Fortunately, there are tried-and-tested, constitutionally grounded ways to do this. Many, including those highlighted below, were included in the Respecting the First Amendment on Campus Act, which passed the House in 2024 with bipartisan support.

At public universities, for example, Congress can: 

• End the use of “free speech zones” that unconstitutionally quarantine student expression to tiny areas of campus 
• Require adherence to the Supreme Court’s time, place, and manner framework for expressive conduct regulations
• Prohibit the use of political litmus tests in admissions, hiring, or promotions 
• Protect students from unconstitutional,  viewpoint-discriminatory “security fees”

These commonsense, widely adopted policy frameworks protect students’ rights while giving schools the flexibility to tailor their policies to institutional needs. They are not novel, unexpected, or onerous. At least 24 states have enacted some or all of them, often with unanimous or bipartisan support.

Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle have made clear that campus free speech is indispensable. Amid disagreements during this hearing, members repeatedly returned to the same core principle: higher education cannot fulfill its mission unless students and faculty are free to debate the issues of the day. We hope this shared commitment can translate into practical reforms that ensure our nation’s leaders are trained through “that robust exchange of ideas which discovers truth ‘out of a multitude of tongues, rather than through any kind of authoritative selection.’”

Reintroducing and passing the Respecting the First Amendment on Campus Act would be a great first step.