Top of the Class, But Barely Passing: Free Speech Advocate Shares How UVA Can Improve

On Monday, Greg Lukianoff, a free-speech lawyer and advocate visited UVA to discuss the state of free speech at the university and other college campuses across the nation.

Lukianoff is the president of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (“FIRE”), a non-partisan non-profit that “defends the individual rights of students and faculty members on our nation’s campuses.” FIRE provides legal help for students and professors at universities facing anti-free speech administrative action and engages in free speech advocacy and education on campuses across the nation. To this end, FIRE releases the College Free Speech Ranking every September, an annual report detailing the state of free speech and expression at American universities.

During his visit to Grounds, Lukianoff discussed the most recent free speech rankings for this academic year at an event sponsored by the Blue Ridge Center, highlighting UVA’s position at the top of the list. Lukianoff explained the factors that make UVA the best university for free speech, and shared how both colleges in general and UVA specifically can improve their free speech environment.

Since 2020, Lukianoff’s organization has partnered with Campus Pulse, a research organization, to conduct annual surveys of the perceived free speech environment at more than 250 of the nation’s most prominent universities. FIRE combines this survey data with their database of anti-free speech events on college campuses, such as professor-firing attempts, campus speaker shout-downs, and viewpoint-based institutional targeting of students. The organization uses these metrics, as well as an analysis of each university’s speech code, to rank each university on a 100-point scale.

This year, UVA topped the rankings with a score of 73.41 out of 100. Michigan Technological University placed second, with a score of 73.15, and Florida State University placed third, at 72.46. At the bottom of the list sits Harvard University, earning zero points on the official ranking, although Lukianoff said that Harvard had its score rounded up from -12. Columbia University also scored zero points, and New York University received 3.33.

Lukianoff explained that UVA’s “green light” speech code was one of the reasons why it topped the pack. FIRE gives university speech codes a red, yellow, or green light ranking, depending on how protective the code is of free expression. UVA’s code earned a “green light” for protecting freedom of speech to a high degree. Additionally, UVA places in the top third of schools regarding openness to difficult topics and tolerance for controversial speakers, and it scores above average regarding administrative support for free speech, student’s comfort in expressing their ideas, and in students’ perceived levels of self-censorship. The university has stood up against pressure to fire professors from both the right and left, and it has also respected the free speech rights of campus groups. Notably, UVA resisted calls for administrative action against Students for Justice in Palestine after the campus group released a statement commending last October’s attack in Israel.

Lukianoff pointed out that it is often the actions universities do not pursue that bump them up in the ratings. UVA, for example, has not caved into any speaker disinvitation attempt since FIRE started tracking such movements in their Campus Deplatforming Database. When a university administration does cave to these pressures, they lose points in FIRE’s rating.

However, FIRE’s ratings gave UVA some significant room for improvement regarding certain aspects of free speech culture. In the disruptive conduct category, which evaluates the extent to which students believe it is acceptable to use violence, shout-downs, and entry blocking to prevent controversial speakers from speech activity, UVA came in 200th place out of 256 schools. Around 16% of students said it was sometimes or always acceptable to use violence to shut down a speaker, 28% said it was sometimes or always acceptable to block students from attending a campus speaker, and 38% said it was sometimes or always acceptable to shout-down a campus speaker.

When asked how UVA can improve its students’ standard of behavior for disruptive conduct, Lukianoff said that solving this problem “needs to start on day one” of students’ time at the university. UVA “should reevaluate however they are doing orientation to address that [problem with disruptive conduct] head on.” Lukianoff refers to FIRE’s model orientation program as a great starting place for UVA to rethink the ways in which it can use students’ first introduction to undergraduate life as an opportunity to clearly communicate UVA’s commitment to free speech. Yet, it is not enough to simply introduce students to free speech ideas at the beginning of their four years; UVA’s commitment to free speech must be “integrated into the daily life of the school.”

UVA has made consistent progress toward improving campus free speech attitudes over the last few years. UVA placed 24th in the 2022-23 rankings, scoring 62.38 points, and 6th place in last year’s rankings, scoring 68 points. Perhaps by heeding Lukianoff’s advice, UVA can be the first university to clear 80 points in FIRE’s next free speech ranking.