The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression ranked free speech at Harvard University last among 251 colleges.
But the group’s campus advocacy chief of staff Connor Murnane argues that Harvard’s failures do not justify President Trump’s dramatic steps against the university.
“ As we watch each domino continue to fall, the Trump administration’s actions toward Harvard seem less like an act of federal oversight and arguably more like a hostile takeover. And the federal government doesn’t have that power in a free society. It never should,” Murnane said. “Harvard earned its last-place finish in our college free speech ranking. That does not mean the heavy hand of the government should dictate how or whether it ever redeems itself.”
5 questions with Connor Murnane
What did your organization find about Harvard?
“The college free speech rankings contain three major components, one of which is the largest student survey on perceptions towards free speech, how their university handles it, how comfortable they are discussing it on campus. And across the board, we saw some pretty negative responses there.
“Another major component that really hurts Harvard is the student and faculty sanctions for what should be protected expression and research. And we’ve also documented multiple successful disinvitations of speaking events or event disruptions. And when you have administration so lax about defending speech across the board, it’s not surprising that 70% of Harvard students say that it is at least rarely acceptable to shout down a speaker to prevent them from being heard on campus.”
Some universities would argue, in some cases, they have reason to curb certain speech, such as when someone wants to say derogatory things about transgender students or a white supremacist group wants to hold a campus event. They argue this could impact the safety of students. Do they have a point?
“Words aren’t violence. And there are exceptions to the First Amendment. And these exceptions are extremely narrow for a good reason. Speech can only be censored or punished under clearly defined legal standards, and expanding those exceptions risks turning them into tools for censorship. We already have guidelines for incitement speech intended and likely to provoke imminent unlawful action, true threats, which are serious expressions of intent to commit violence.
“If you can’t have these conversations on a college campus, where the marketplace of ideas is supposed to be thriving, where can you have them?”
Harvard has said in its recent lawsuit against the administration that the Trump administration wants the university to audit views on campus to achieve “viewpoint diversity.” Does your group support those kinds of actions on campuses?
“We support viewpoint diversity, but we do have an issue with the specific ask. They wanted to abolish ideological litmus tests in hiring and admissions and practice steps to ensure viewpoint diversity in the faculty and student body. What I don’t understand is how Harvard can take both steps simultaneously and also commit to merit-based hiring and admissions.”
You wrote an opinion piece against the administration’s detention of a student at Tufts University. The student made pro-Palestinian statements and called on the school to label the war in Gaza a genocide. When you see the administration, in this case, jailing, detaining students and also arguing that certain views are being silenced, is that hypocritical?
“I still cannot fathom how, in a free society like we claim to have here in the United States, anyone could be snatched off the street and present and threatened with deportation for authoring an op-ed. An op-ed, which the school itself said was kind of bland compared to others that ran on the same topic. And a precedent in the United States has held that burning an American flag in protest is protected activity. Yet now the government is claiming that this time is different and that it’s university students’ pro-Palestinian or supposedly anti-Israeli views can’t be tolerated.
“And that’s the true danger. I do think it is a little hypocritical.”
Given what the administration is doing, how do you think it’ll impact freedom of speech on campus?
“I think it’s absolutely already chilling speech. Last week, I believe the Trump administration asked Harvard for five years of protest footage. Not just vandalism or the occupation of a building, but protest activity, period. That’s creating a campus surveillance state. And students are gonna rightfully fear that they’re being watched and they could be punished.”
This interview was lightly edited for clarity.
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Jill Ryan produced and edited this interview for broadcast with Micaela Rodriguez. Allison Hagan adapted it for the web.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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