The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) is pleased that Tufts University has decided to renew its commitment to freedom of expression. Unfortunately, the draft “Declaration on Freedom of Expression and Inquiry at Tufts University” fails to adequately protect freedom of expression at Tufts and will, in all likelihood, invite more censorship and uncertainty while discouraging robust debate, candor, and dissent.
Campus Speech Codes: Absurd, Tenacious, and Everywhere
One can be forgiven for thinking that campus speech codes are a thing of the past. After all, there were no fewer than five legal decisions from 1989 to 1995 overturning such codes as unlawful or unconstitutional. Sadly, however, speech codes did not disappear in the 1990s; in fact, they increased in number even as it became painfully clear that they were both unlawful and unwise.