Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, let's do something completely different.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
So I've had on the guests from time to time
folks from Fire or the Fire th fire dot org
and Fire is one of the truly great free speech
organizations in the country, and they used to be focused
entirely on education. Now they're broader than that, but still
(00:25):
a lot of focus on education. And for close to
twenty years now, Fire has kept this database of free.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Speech and particularly.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Free speech codes and rules at various colleges, and boy,
there are a lot of colleges that are really really
bad when it comes to free speech, but not all
the news is bad. And joining us to talk about
it is Ryan Ansloan, who wrote this year's report, Spotlight
on Speech Codes twenty twenty five for Fire. Again. The
(00:59):
website is the fire dot Org. Ryan, thanks for being.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Here, Thanks for having us.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
That's very interesting.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
So let's just jump right in and first give us
an overview of exactly what this survey is attempting to capture.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Sure, yeah, we review annually the policies at nearly five
hundred of the top colleges and universities in the country
to see if they're written policies are consistent with First
Amendment standards. A lot of students set fit on campus
not realizing that they may be giving up their free
speech rights, their ability to protest, to just make their
(01:36):
voices heard. And so we want to make sure that
we hold schools accountable and provide parents and students the
information that they need to make those decisions intelligently.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
What kind of things can colleges do or do colleges
do that get them bad or really bad ratings on
this survey?
Speaker 3 (01:58):
Sure, so we use kind of a traffic light rating
when we're rating schools. A school with no written policies
that seriously implicate free speech can get a green light rating,
but the schools with policies that clearly and substantially restrict
free speech earn our worst red light rating. And a
lot of times those are things like bias response teams,
(02:20):
where schools are soliciting students to kind of, for lack
of a better phrase, snitch on their fellow students for
saying something that they find offensive or triggering or just
indicative of bias. And so that's something that we've seen
pop up for years, and we're only just starting to
see schools kind of back away from that. Things like
(02:43):
harassment policies are very similar. The Supreme Court is set
a standard that schools should follow that balances free speech
with people's genuine right to be free of discrimination and harassment.
But a lot of schools adopt really bad definitions that
could have an off color joke or a comment made
(03:05):
in poortage get subject students to a really bad investigation
that could upend their lives.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Yeah, and I'll add it doesn't.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
The comment doesn't even have to have been in poor taste.
It's not unheard of with these you know, snowflakes on
college campuses.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
And we were talking earlier in the show.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
In a different context about how there's so many people
out there who just look for a reason to be offended.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Right, this is this is an actual thing.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
You meet somebody interesting on a college campus, a fellow
student who is from somewhere else, you don't know where,
and they've got a very interesting accent, and you ask
where are you from, just based on their accent. If
you say that to the wrong snowflake or around the
wrong snowflake.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Even if it's not the person with the.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Accent, they can turn you in saying that's some kind
of microaggression. Now that doesn't mean the school is going
to necessarily do anything to you, but they might i'd
call you in and ask you questions and stuff like that,
and even that is even just asking you to come
in and asking you a question is wrong.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
Absolutely honestly. One of the things that we've really focused
on in recent years is the chilling effect on campus
that simply soliciting these reporters can have a lot of
schools have biased response teams that maybe they don't all
out punishment themselves, but simply asking students to report on
each other and then the possibility of having an investigation,
(04:31):
having a conversation that I think a student that goes
through that process is going to think twice before they
say anything for fear of running us out of that
sort of thing. And so it's absolutely a very real problem.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Yeah, very interesting.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
So for many years, at least up through the Biden administration,
but starting way before that, but going through the Biden administration,
the trend was distinctly worse ever year because you had
governments who either weren't paying attention, like I'm sure Trump
in his first term would not have been sympathetic to
(05:09):
these speech codes, but he wasn't.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Really paying attention.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Obama and Biden would have been very sympathetic to these
speech codes and restricting free speech despite all their happy
talk about supporting free speech. But now with Trump in office,
does it seem like we are seeing, like you are
seeing the first turn for the better among colleges.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
Yeah, it's interesting you mentioned we've been doing this report
for a couple of decades now, and it's very difficult
to sometimes parsh out exactly which direction we're going. But
in general, the worst policies have been improved over time.
I think there are kind of ebbs and flows to
(05:54):
focus on free speech on campus, and there weren't peeriods
even during the first Trump administration, where I think that
there was a bit of a shift where I think
the conversation was really concerned about the about you know,
what are our students learning and how what kind of
conversations are they engaging in. We have seen especially post
(06:18):
October seventh, probably you know, when you had the encampments
and just really a global spotlight on what people were
learning and what people are talking about on campus and
whether they are able to talk on campus. There's been
a spotlight shown on a lot of these schools. You know,
(06:39):
you had those congressional hearings where the university presidents really
did not equip themselves well and in some ways they
were really called out as hypocrites for kind of embracing
free speech when it is convenient, and their track record
did not reflect kindly. And you know, that's one of
the reasons that we have this report, is that you
(07:00):
can kind of hold university speech to the fire and
hold them accountable to live up to the free speech
promises that they make. I think in recent years universities
have really been forced to kind of go back to
the drawing board and demonstrate in writing that they are
taking this seriously. And in many ways that's just step one.
(07:20):
There's a lot of work to do to regain public
trust that they're actually going to stand up for free
speech in the way that they should.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
Right, And I think a lot of universities that aren't
the biggest, most famous ones are still are nevertheless seeing
Columbia spend a couple hundred million and Harvard maybe five
hundred million if that deal comes through. Brown just announced
fifty million settlement with the federal government, and a lot
of it is in its own way is about free
speech as well as protecting civil rights. They're related to
(07:49):
each other, and so I think, well, you would know
better than I do. So it doesn't matter if I
think you're right, but I do think you're right that
there's been a real turn. Ryan Ansloan is counsel for
Policy Reform and Foundation for Individual Rights and expressiondefire dot org.
Their new report is Spotlight on Speech Codes twenty twenty five.
(08:10):
Thanks for the great work, Thanks for your time today.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Thank you all right,
All right, let's do something completely different.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
So I've had on the guests from time to time
folks from Fire or the Fire th fire dot org
and Fire is one of the truly great free speech
organizations in the country, and they used to be focused
entirely on education. Now they're broader than that, but still
(00:25):
a lot of focus on education. And for close to
twenty years now, Fire has kept this database of free.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Speech and particularly.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Free speech codes and rules at various colleges, and boy,
there are a lot of colleges that are really really
bad when it comes to free speech, but not all
the news is bad. And joining us to talk about
it is Ryan Ansloan, who wrote this year's report, Spotlight
on Speech Codes twenty twenty five for Fire. Again. The
(00:59):
website is the fire dot Org. Ryan, thanks for being.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Here, Thanks for having us.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
That's very interesting.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
So let's just jump right in and first give us
an overview of exactly what this survey is attempting to capture.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Sure, yeah, we review annually the policies at nearly five
hundred of the top colleges and universities in the country
to see if they're written policies are consistent with First
Amendment standards. A lot of students set fit on campus
not realizing that they may be giving up their free
speech rights, their ability to protest, to just make their
(01:36):
voices heard. And so we want to make sure that
we hold schools accountable and provide parents and students the
information that they need to make those decisions intelligently.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
What kind of things can colleges do or do colleges
do that get them bad or really bad ratings on
this survey?
Speaker 3 (01:58):
Sure, so we use kind of a traffic light rating
when we're rating schools. A school with no written policies
that seriously implicate free speech can get a green light rating,
but the schools with policies that clearly and substantially restrict
free speech earn our worst red light rating. And a
lot of times those are things like bias response teams,
(02:20):
where schools are soliciting students to kind of, for lack
of a better phrase, snitch on their fellow students for
saying something that they find offensive or triggering or just
indicative of bias. And so that's something that we've seen
pop up for years, and we're only just starting to
see schools kind of back away from that. Things like
(02:43):
harassment policies are very similar. The Supreme Court is set
a standard that schools should follow that balances free speech
with people's genuine right to be free of discrimination and harassment.
But a lot of schools adopt really bad definitions that
could have an off color joke or a comment made
(03:05):
in poortage get subject students to a really bad investigation
that could upend their lives.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Yeah, and I'll add it doesn't.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
The comment doesn't even have to have been in poor taste.
It's not unheard of with these you know, snowflakes on
college campuses.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
And we were talking earlier in the show.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
In a different context about how there's so many people
out there who just look for a reason to be offended.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Right, this is this is an actual thing.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
You meet somebody interesting on a college campus, a fellow
student who is from somewhere else, you don't know where,
and they've got a very interesting accent, and you ask
where are you from, just based on their accent. If
you say that to the wrong snowflake or around the
wrong snowflake.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Even if it's not the person with the.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Accent, they can turn you in saying that's some kind
of microaggression. Now that doesn't mean the school is going
to necessarily do anything to you, but they might i'd
call you in and ask you questions and stuff like that,
and even that is even just asking you to come
in and asking you a question is wrong.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
Absolutely honestly. One of the things that we've really focused
on in recent years is the chilling effect on campus
that simply soliciting these reporters can have a lot of
schools have biased response teams that maybe they don't all
out punishment themselves, but simply asking students to report on
each other and then the possibility of having an investigation,
(04:31):
having a conversation that I think a student that goes
through that process is going to think twice before they
say anything for fear of running us out of that
sort of thing. And so it's absolutely a very real problem.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Yeah, very interesting.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
So for many years, at least up through the Biden administration,
but starting way before that, but going through the Biden administration,
the trend was distinctly worse ever year because you had
governments who either weren't paying attention, like I'm sure Trump
in his first term would not have been sympathetic to
(05:09):
these speech codes, but he wasn't.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Really paying attention.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Obama and Biden would have been very sympathetic to these
speech codes and restricting free speech despite all their happy
talk about supporting free speech. But now with Trump in office,
does it seem like we are seeing, like you are
seeing the first turn for the better among colleges.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
Yeah, it's interesting you mentioned we've been doing this report
for a couple of decades now, and it's very difficult
to sometimes parsh out exactly which direction we're going. But
in general, the worst policies have been improved over time.
I think there are kind of ebbs and flows to
(05:54):
focus on free speech on campus, and there weren't peeriods
even during the first Trump administration, where I think that
there was a bit of a shift where I think
the conversation was really concerned about the about you know,
what are our students learning and how what kind of
conversations are they engaging in. We have seen especially post
(06:18):
October seventh, probably you know, when you had the encampments
and just really a global spotlight on what people were
learning and what people are talking about on campus and
whether they are able to talk on campus. There's been
a spotlight shown on a lot of these schools. You know,
(06:39):
you had those congressional hearings where the university presidents really
did not equip themselves well and in some ways they
were really called out as hypocrites for kind of embracing
free speech when it is convenient, and their track record
did not reflect kindly. And you know, that's one of
the reasons that we have this report, is that you
(07:00):
can kind of hold university speech to the fire and
hold them accountable to live up to the free speech
promises that they make. I think in recent years universities
have really been forced to kind of go back to
the drawing board and demonstrate in writing that they are
taking this seriously. And in many ways that's just step one.
(07:20):
There's a lot of work to do to regain public
trust that they're actually going to stand up for free
speech in the way that they should.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
Right, And I think a lot of universities that aren't
the biggest, most famous ones are still are nevertheless seeing
Columbia spend a couple hundred million and Harvard maybe five
hundred million if that deal comes through. Brown just announced
fifty million settlement with the federal government, and a lot
of it is in its own way is about free
speech as well as protecting civil rights. They're related to
(07:49):
each other, and so I think, well, you would know
better than I do. So it doesn't matter if I
think you're right, but I do think you're right that
there's been a real turn. Ryan Ansloan is counsel for
Policy Reform and Foundation for Individual Rights and expressiondefire dot org.
Their new report is Spotlight on Speech Codes twenty twenty five.
(08:10):
Thanks for the great work, Thanks for your time today.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Thank you all right,
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