These New England schools ranked among ’10 worst colleges for free speech’
Harvard was (dis)honored for the fifth time.
Four New England schools are among the worst colleges for free speech, according to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE).The nonprofit published its annual list on Wednesday, which included Harvard, Babson, and Middlebury College in Vermont. FIRE determines the list of both public and private colleges and universities by the past year’s incidents that violated free speech laws or standards. Harvard made the list for several transgressions, and for the fifth time. FIRE cited the school’s continued practice denying students who are members of single-gender social clubs — even off-campus — from two prominent scholarships, leadership positions in on-campus clubs, and participation on athletic teams. Harvard Law professor Ronald S. Sullivan Jr. was ousted as a faculty dean after he took on legal representation of Harvey Weinstein. FIRE also cited Harvard’s new policy requiring events with “controversial” speakers to include a neutral moderator. “Harvard, one of the world’s leading universities, surely has the intellectual capacity to write a better, fairer policy,” FIRE wrote. “The fact that it didn’t can only mean it didn’t want to.”Babson College also made the list for firing Asheen Phansey. The adjunct instructor and administrator came under scrutiny for his Facebook post encouraging Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to “
tweet a list of 52 sites of beloved American cultural heritage that he would bomb. Um… Mall of America? …Kardashian residence?” Phansey described the post as a bad attempt at humor, but was fired after a one-day investigation by Babson.
“At a private school like Babson that makes promises of free expression, a joke like Phansey’s could ignite a range of acceptable responses from the university,” FIRE wrote. “Firing him is not one of them.”
Middlebury College in Vermont made the list for unilaterally cancelling an event with conservative Polish scholar Ryszard Legutko. The school cited safety risks in shutting it down just hours before the talk. FIRE called the cancellation of Legutko’s lecture “one of the most troubling infringements on student and faculty free speech and open inquiry rights we saw last year.”
University of Connecticut also made the list for an incident in October involving students shouting a racial slur as part of a game. Campus police identified the students and the two were charged with a misdemeanor under a Connecticut law prohibiting ridicule on account of creed, religion, color, denomination, nationality or race, as well as bringing student disciplinary charges against the pair.
“While the word used by Karal and Mucaj is deeply offensive to many, it does not fall into any recognized exception under the First Amendment,” wrote FIRE in a letter to the university. “But investigating and arresting students who use offensive language, UConn has departed from its clear and non-negotiable constitutional obligations.”
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