LATEST EDUCATION NEWS:  Dear Harvard is in the news again, but for the wrong reasons.  From Daily Mail: 

Harvard University has been ranked the worst school for free speech in the U.S. - with the Ivy League institution being awarded zero points out of a possible 100. 

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression releases a similar list of rankings for American institutions of higher education every year. 

For 2023, Harvard - which has never performed well by FIRE's standards - was dubbed an 'abysmal' place for free speech.

Despite being arguably the most elite academic institution in the country, Harvard's 0-point score was a full 11 points behind the next worst school on the list, fellow Ivy League University of Pennsylvania.

FIRE added that Harvard's result was 'generous' and that its actual score by its calculations was less than zero at -10.69.

The school's score tanked for a number of reasons, not the least of which being the nine professors and researchers at Harvard who faced calls to be punished or fired in the last few years based on things they'd said or written.

Seven of the nine were ultimately disciplined.

The director of polling and analytics at FIRE, Sean Stevens, told the New York Post that Harvard has consistently ranked among the bottom tier of schools on the list, but was surprised a school was able to 'fall below zero.'

'They've had so many scholar sanctions,' he said.

A school's score is calculated based on factors like how strong its policies in favor of free speech are and how many professors, students, and visitors to campus have been targeted by school authorities for their publicly held positions.

At Harvard, in the last five years, some of the seven free speech incidents have included the school's decision to revoke conservative activist Kyle Kashuv's acceptance because of racist comments he made on social media as a 16-year-old, for which he apologized.

Since 2019, Harvard has sanctioned four scholars, three of whom the institution has gone on to fire.

David Kane, a former government professor at the university, was fired after hundreds of students signed a petition for his removal because of an op-ed he wrote about his alma mater's acceptance criteria and claimed that '90 percent-plus of the Black students at Williams would not have been admitted were it not for their Blackness.' 

Points are awarded if administrators at the school defend the rights of those whose speech has been threatened.

The score is also impacted based on the results of a poll conducted by FIRE in conjunction with the College Pulse about overall student sentiment surrounding free speech.

Harvard's shocking position comes despite some 100 of its professors uniting earlier this year to establish the Council on Academic Freedom to defend open inquiry on campus.

'Many, many people are being threatened with - and actually put through - disciplinary processes for their exercise of free speech and academic freedom,' said Harvard Law School professor Janet Halley. 'We are in a crisis time right now.'

Harvard and Penn were the only two Ivy League schools to round out the bottom five of the 248-school list. They were followed by the University of South Carolina, Georgetown University, and New York's Fordham University.

Columbia University in New York City took the top spot for worst school for free speech last year, though this year it ranked 214th out of 248.

COMMENT:    You can see the complete FIRE ranking list here.  Harvard has the honor to be the only college ranked "abysmal."   But other so-called "elite" colleges are close by. 

You'd think some of these wealthy, privileged, institutions of "higher learning" would want to do something about their free-speech problems.  But, just as General Motors knew it would sell lots of cars before the Japanese entered the market, prestige colleges know they'll get huge numbers of applications and donations simply because of their names.  Students applying to Harvard probably never give free speech a second thought.

It's possible things could change.  There appears to be a serious re-thinking about the value of higher education among the parents of America.  It's a function of the market.  College has become so expensive that more and more people are demanding to know its value.  Will the scrutiny lead to Harvard and others cleaning up their acts.  Maybe.

September 7, 2023