Breaking down our 2027 College Free Speech Rankings

Harvard, institutional neutrality, how we determine the rankings, partisan censorship, how schools can improve their ranking, and more!

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

03:18 Learn about our inaugural Soapbox conference

04:02 Preorder Nico's book Free Speech Generation

5:00 Check out FIRE's 2027 College Free Speech rankings

06:05 Who are the top- and bottom-ranked schools?

09:27 What's new with the Harvard evaluation?

13:08 How does FIRE choose which schools to rank?

13:46 What can universities do to improve their ranking?

15:54 What is institutional neutrality?

18:05 What exactly are students being asked about campus speech?

21:25 How does FIRE make sure defending free speech doesn't inadvertently protect censorship in the classroom?

25:19 Is campus censorship coming more from the "right" or the "left"?

26:53 Did the University of Washington settlement involving Professor Stuart Reges affect its ranking?

30:45 What does it mean to pre-register our methodology?

31:35 Why did Claremont McKenna drop in the rankings?

33:07 What advice does FIRE have for students at low-ranked schools facing censorship?

36:47 Do politically homogeneous campuses make students more comfortable speaking freely?

40:26 Do low-ranked colleges tell FIRE how they are improving?

42:56 What can administrators do now to improve next year's ranking?

43:50 Does FIRE account for turnover in university leadership?

45:47 What do the rankings reveal about different student demographic groups?

49:41 Does FIRE account for differences between types of institutions?

52:00 What's up with MIT?

56:02 Should attacks on tenured professors carry more weight than actions against other faculty?

57:02 Who does FIRE contact when evaluating a university?

58:09 Are there regional patterns in the rankings?

58:57 Were there bigger ranking swings than usual this year?

01:00:44 Outro

Joining us:

• Nico Perrino, executive vice president

• Angela Erickson, vice president of research

• Sean Stevens, chief researcher

• Ronnie London, general counsel and director of litigation

• Connor Murnane, campus advocacy chief of staff

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