Harvard Named Worst School for Free Speech Scoring 0 out of Possible 100

I'm really not surprised by this. Big name and big money school goes hard left and look what happens ... free speech is shut down. It's a problem everywhere and you'd think that an institution like this would know better, but apparently they don't. I wouldn't want to be spending $80,000 a year for education for my child only to have that child ruined by the bias and indoctrination.

Tuition, $52,659 ; Fees, $4,602 ; Room, $12,056 ; Board, $7,446 ; Subtotal - billed costs, $76,763.

New York Post - Harvard Named Worst School for Free Speech Scoring 0 out of Possible 100

Harvard University is officially 2023’s worst school for free speech. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) released its annual college free speech rankings on Wednesday, which dubbed the state of free speech at the Ivy League school “abysmal.”

Despite being the most acclaimed academic institution in the country, Harvard received a 0.00-point free speech ranking on a 100-point scale — a full 11 points behind the next worst school. FIRE says the dismal score was “generous,” considering Harvard’s actual score was a -10.69, according to their calculations.

Harvard’s score was dragged down by the fact that nine professors and researchers at Harvard faced calls to be punished or fired based on what they had said or written — and seven of the nine were actually professionally disciplined. The score is calculated based on factors including how strong the school’s policies in favor of free speech are and how many professors, students, and campus speakers have been targeted by authorities for their speech.

“We are in a crisis time right now,” Janet Halley, a Harvard Law School professor and member of the Council, told The Post in April. “Many, many people are being threatened with — and actually put through — disciplinary processes for their exercise of free speech and academic freedom.”

80% of faculty is liberal or very liberal and only 1% is conservative.

The Crimson - Faculty Survey Political Leaning

More than 80 percent of Harvard faculty respondents characterized their political leanings as “liberal” or “very liberal,” according to The Crimson’s annual survey of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences in April.

A little over 37 percent of faculty respondents identified as “very liberal”— a nearly 8 percent jump from last year. Only 1 percent of respondents stated they are “conservative,” and no respondents identified as “very conservative.”

The Crimson distributed its survey to more than 1,100 members of the FAS and the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, polling tenured, tenure-track, and non-tenure track faculty on their demographics, academic life, and viewpoints on other issues, including Harvard governance.

Harvard Survey Reveals Striking Ideological Bias

The recent Harvard survey findings show just how incongruous the views of many university professors are compared to the American public at large. Gallup polling results released earlier this year found that most Americans identify as “moderate” (37%) or “conservative” (36%), while only one-quarter of Americans identify as “liberal.” Unlike university faculty members that continue to skew further to the ideological left, the political leanings of most Americans have remained largely unchanged in recent years.

Harvard Gets Worst Score Ever in FIRE College Free Speech Rankings

First of all, Harvard, which on paper commits to protecting free speech, has a dismal record of responding to deplatforming attempts — attempts to sanction students, student groups, scholars, and speakers for speech protected under First Amendment standards. Of nine attempts in total over the past five years, seven resulted in sanction.

Harvard also performed very poorly on a number of the survey-based components of the College Free Speech Rankings, ranking 193 out of 254 on “Comfort Expressing Ideas,” 183 on “Administrative Support,” and 198 on “Disruptive Conduct.” This is reflected in student survey responses. For instance, just over a quarter of Harvard students reported they are comfortable publicly disagreeing with their professor on a controversial political topic; only roughly a third think it is “very” or “extremely” clear the administration protects free speech on campus; and an alarming 30% think using violence to stop a campus speech is at least “rarely” acceptable, an increase from the 26% of Harvard students who felt this way last year.

Trends over the last four years of Harvard’s data are troubling as well. For starters, self-censorship is steadily on the rise, with the percentage of Harvard students who say they self-censor on campus “fairly often” or “very often” increasing from 16% two years ago to 22% last year and 24% this year.

Over the past four years, abortion in particular has become increasingly difficult to discuss on campus, perhaps due to its increasing prominence in the public conversation following the overturning of Roe v. Wade. In 2020, 35% of Harvard students identified abortion as “a difficult topic to have an open and honest conversation about on campus.” This percentage dipped to 29% the following year, then increased to 39% last year and to 46% this year.

Last but not least, Harvard’s speech policies leave a lot to be desired. The school earns FIRE’s “yellow light” rating, indicating that it maintains policies that restrict some amount of protected expression or that, by virtue of their vague wording, Havard could too easily use to restrict protected expression. For instance, Harvard requires students to be “civil” when using computers and networks

There's a reason so many politicians are Harvard and/or Yale graduates. They're like a launch pad for wannabes and hopefuls...they just have to show their worthiness by proving the degree of corruption they're willing to embrace.

Well since 'free speech' goes hand in hand with 'free enquiry' those rankings don't really bode well for a 'university'.

Always remembered this rather telling quote about Harvard from Thomas Sowell.

Harvard is the root for many evils and home of many evil people and the uterus of many evil agendas, including the WEF and it´s Great Reset.

a girl i went to school with is like 40. she still uses her harvard edu email.
tells everyone, im harvard.
her husband is a lt g0venor.
she has partied with prezidents, thinks its 'cool'

so obviously to her, that harvard edu is not just important, but her bragging about it got her higher up in 'those circles' if you want to be in those shttt circles.

me, ive h8ted those circles my entire life.
of course no speeech there.
they are all internati0nalists.
just like the skumbag prezidents my friend takes pics with.

Since this is ATS, where we deny ignorance, I think it's worth mentioning where they get their funding from:

"FIRE has received major funding from groups which primarily support conservative and libertarian causes, including the Bradley Foundation, Sarah Scaife Foundation, and the Charles Koch Institute."

I mean fair is fair. I see all too often folks complaining when Soros funds something, so I think it's only fair to note that this organization receives a lions share of funding from pretty far right foundations.

And following that path I think it makes sense that they would come down hard on schools like Harvard. And being that more than 80% of the faculty and 60% of the students describe the campus as liberal leaning, to me it makes sense they would receive this score.

I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but the facts line up that this is not a surprise at all.

On a side note, doing the research on this, I did learn that out of the 8 Ivy League schools,

5 are left leaning
3 are right leaning

Just an interesting fact!!

a reply to: FlyersFan

I am not really surprised either bro. The illusion of "higher" education has been eroded and its really sad to think how much intellectual curiosity has dimmed in america's universities. The culture wars of the 80s rage on, unfortunately academia continues to be nearly 99% captured.

a reply to: TimeTravelX11

Higher education is not what it used to be. The income is just not there anymore to support spending that kind of ridiculous money. More and more now-a-days trades are outpacing the income of university grads. As well, many high school dropouts have gone on to start very successful companies and made billons. Branson, Gates, Jobs, etc. were all high school dropouts and they did okay for themselves to say the least.

a reply to: FlyersFan

rating will drop even more after the fall.
beetle juice lightfoot is going to be teaching a class on how to run a city during a plandemic.

Teaching graduate students at Harvard “gives me an opportunity to share my perceptions and experiences of the times that we’ve lived through with people who are very committed to the public sector,” she said
Former Mayor Lori Lightfoot to teach at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health

side note : a edited version of the story quoted her as saying she would only be taking questions from students of color.

a reply to: CanadianLoudMouth

I'd guess the issue with the Soros funding is... well Soros. One guy who spreads tons of money around. Note ONE GUY! As to the liberal biases at Harvard, well they are obviously silencing speech there. The record is there for all to see.

a reply to: FlyersFan

They keep on claiming the right and Trump are fascists but that is because they don't know what that word means, since they are educated by woke colleges and schools. Woke is fascism. They won't let you say or do what you want.

a reply to: FlyersFan


Well taking into consideration that many of the graduates will become embedded into politics and making our laws, this tells what kind of future is waiting for America.

I am sure Soros dirty money is all over it as donations, who owns the law made the laws.

originally posted by: nugget1
There's a reason so many politicians are Harvard and/or Yale graduates. They're like a launch pad for wannabes and hopefuls...they just have to show their worthiness by proving the degree of corruption they're willing to embrace.

Our Ivy League schools use to be places of critical thinking & debate.
Now they are havens of progressive lunacy.
Harvard is a joke school imo & Im a independent liberal who misses debating rather than group woke thinking.

originally posted by: BernnieJGato
a reply to: FlyersFan

rating will drop even more after the fall.
beetle juice lightfoot is going to be teaching a class on how to run a city during a plandemic.

You mean the next plandemic. It's possibly around the corner. In Gov. Newsome's paradise of California, there has just been shut down a CHINESE BIO LAB. Yep, www.msn.com... What the he-double-toothpicks is a Chinese Bio Lab doing operating in California if not to start another plandemic.


That aside:

Since when in the past few years have liberals been known for free speech.

Free speech to a liberal, leftist, Democrat means speech that agrees with our ideology, our dogma, our creeds.

To liberals and Democrats all speech that disagrees with them, is deemed hate speech to be censored. Just like the Biden administration has been openly doing, which we learned from a recent court case. nypost.com... www.cnn.com...

The liberal reaction to "free speech" is to demand the firing of anyone who disagrees with their ever changing morality of the day/moment. Or destroy their business. Or social media hound them. Or destroy their reputation. That is how the liberal left handles free speech. It is only free if it agrees 110% with liberal doctrine of the day or new doctrine of the moment. (Like 3-4 year olds should be taken seriously and at their word if they say they are another gender while playing and immediately begin to be transitioned by their parents and preschool)

We all know Harvard is liberal, who expects them to allow free speech. That's ridiculous, you know they are leftist and liberal and no one expects liberals to truly allow free speech in an environment where they can control the narrative.

a reply to: FlyersFan

No surprise that really. Manufactured consensus is the backbone of One Party authoritarianism. It's fundamentally necessary to establishment and maintenance of dictatorial ideologies.

originally posted by: Ch1nch1lla
a reply to: FlyersFan

They keep on claiming the right and Trump are fascists but that is because they don't know what that word means, since they are educated by woke colleges and schools. Woke is fascism. They won't let you say or do what you want.

Woke is fascism, so very, very true.

a reply to: FlyersFan

Where there ANY schools that scored high?

a reply to: Ch1nch1lla

By definition, facism is indeed a right wing ideology, as defined in any dictionary. But I just finished this debate on another board, so not ready for that one today...lol

a reply to: psychotrail

I'm also a liberal who loves debating (albeit a Canadian liberal, which I think is not quite as far left as American liberals), however if there is one thing I've learned lately is that debates only work if you are trying to reach the same end goal. I'm less and less convinced that the 2 sides are interested in the same things at all, so no point in debating.

On another board I participate in, (also another right wing board), they are all upset that Biden chose to protect Alaskan land vs. allowing oil drilling. Honestly, there is no point in having that debate. Why? Because the 2 sides don't want the same things. Right-wingers don't give a crap about the environment or climate change. They want cheaper gas and more money in their pockets. Left wingers don't care about the cost, they will fight climate change at any cost.

I'm not saying either side is right or wrong, just that to even enter a good debate, there has to be something to debate. When one side wants apples and the other side wants grapes, I don't see how the basis for a good debate is even possible.