AND NOW THE WINNERS, OR LOSERS – OVERNIGHT:  We wait eagerly for these rankings, far more important than the Oscars.  Which colleges have the worst records for safeguarding the free speech of students and faculty?  I don't know how anyone can live without this knowledge.  From Legal Insurrection: 

Like our collective obsession with Wordle, censorship is spreading fast.

In the 11th edition of the “10 Worst Colleges for Free Speech,” released today, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education pillories the worst campus censors over the last year. (And trust us, narrowing down the list was no easy task!) The 2022 “worst-of-the-worst” list features seven new campuses that haven’t made the cut before.

This year’s list includes other colleges guilty of many forms of censorship, including: suspending a student group for passing out stickers critical of China’s government; firing a Jewish professor for calling out the college president’s remark about “Jewish noses”; punishing a student for sending a satirical email; and using a former professor’s bogus lawsuit threat as a justification to censor (and then seize control of) the student newspaper.

The 10 Worst Colleges for Free Speech, in alphabetical order, are:

• Boise State University (Boise, Idaho)
• Collin College (McKinney, Texas)
• Emerson College (Boston, Mass.)
• Georgetown University (Washington, D.C.)
• Linfield University (McMinnville, Ore.)
• Stanford University (Stanford, Calif.)
• Tarleton State University (Stephenville, Texas)
• University of Florida (Gainesville, Fla.)
• University of Illinois Chicago (Chicago, Ill.)
• University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill, N.C.)

Detailed descriptions of each college’s speech-chilling misdeeds are available on FIRE’s website.

COMMENT:  It's sad that we should have to have a listing like this, but some of the greatest assaults on freedom in America today occur on college campuses.  These are the places that we've looked to for enlightenment and wisdom, and many have let us down.  Once again we learn that there is little connection between education and freedom.  The most highly educated have too often embraced the way of the totalitarian. Beware the institutional salesmen of the "college education."

February 4,  2022