“The whole educational process will be enriched and enlivened by a multiplicity of voices and perspectives”

- Nadine Strossen, Former President of the ACLU

Over the past twelve months, there has been a marked rise in legislative attempts to restrict speech of faculty and staff at universities across the United States. Threats to open inquiry (the ability to ask genuine questions and share ideas without fear of rebuke or censure), however, are not new, nor are they the domain of any particular political party. Our 2020 Campus Expression Survey data show that roughly half of undergraduate students in the U.S., regardless of their political ideology, agreed that the climate on their campus prevents people from saying things because others may find them offensive. Many faculty members, administrators, and staff at universities have expressed similar concerns. 

In an environment where open inquiry is not valued, effects on research and learning  can be severe: special interests can set back or snuff out important innovations, avoidable problems can fester and spread, and personal and intellectual growth can be stunted.

We’ve therefore compiled HxA event recordings, blog posts, podcast episodes, and tools on the value of, and debates around, open inquiry, academic freedom, and free speech in education, which we hope will spark conversation and demonstrate the relevance and importance of these topics. We encourage you to use them in your classrooms and on your campuses.

HxA Top Picks

• Podcast: What are the Limits of Viewpoint Diversity? with Nick Phillips
• Blog: Political Firings of Left-Leaning Faculty - Academic Freedom Is Not a Partisan Issue, by Ian Storey
• Report: Campus Expression Survey (CES)
• Event: Which Ideas Gain Entry to the Academy? with Coleman Hughes, Dan Mogulof, Judith Shapiro, and Keith Whittington 
• Book: All Minus One, based on John Stuart Mill’s famous essay, On Liberty.
• Tool: The HxA Way

Event Recordings

• Why Heterodoxy Matters in the World Steven Pinker, best-selling author, Harvard Professor of Psychology, and HxA member, considers why open inquiry, viewpoint diversity, and constructive disagreement matter beyond the academy.
• A Fine Balance: Academic Freedom and Academic Responsibility Former college presidents Judith Shapiro and Brian Rosenberg discuss academic responsibility and what it means for professors to have full freedom in the classroom and in their research.
• Which Ideas Gain Entry to the Academy? Panelists Coleman Hughes, Dan Mogulof, Judith Shapiro, and Keith Whittington analyze the claim that the academy would benefit from a wider range of viewpoints.
• Does Mill Still Matter? In honor of the second edition release of All Minus One, this panel conversation with editors Jonathan Haidt and Richard Reeves and illustrator Dave Cicirelli addresses the importance of open inquiry in society.
• Big Questions and Heterodox Answers Alice Dreger, Shadi Hamid, Angus Johnston, John McWhorter, Jason Stanley, and Kmele Foster identify key tensions and unanswered questions vis-à-vis viewpoint diversity, open inquiry, and constructive disagreement in the academy and beyond. 

Blog Posts

• Academic Inequities: Nontenured Faculty Punished More Harshly For Controversial Speech, by Jordan Howell
• Mill Still Matters Today, on His 212th Birthday, by Richard Reeves
• Why Should We Care About Ideological Diversity in the Academy?, by Musa al-Gharbi
• Why Free Speech? by Jonathan Zimmerman
• Difference and Repetition in the Viewpoint Diversity Space by Musa al-Gharbi
• Freedom of Speech: A Right for Everybody, or Only for Like-Minded People?, by Jonas De keersmaecker and Arne Roets 
• There's Been a Lot of Talk About Campus Free Speech Problems. It's Time to Focus on Solutions, by Jonathan Friedman
• What the “Free Speech” Debate is Still Missing, by Ilana Redstone
• Why Free Speech is Central to Universities' Mission, by Christopher Freiman
• Political Firings of Left-Leaning Faculty - Academic Freedom Is Not a Partisan Issue, by Ian Storey
• Why Mill Matters More than Ever, by Noah Rosenfeld
• Measuring Academic Freedom and Intellectual Diversity, by George La Noue

Reports

• Campus Expression Survey (CES) Each year since 2018, HxA has administered the CES survey to gauge the extent to which college students believe that they can safely express their opinions on campus.
• Gallup-Knight Data In 2016, Gallup, the Knight Foundation, and the Newseum Institute conducted a landmark study on free expression on campus. HxA hosts this data and makes it available for analysis using an easy, intuitive, and accessible visualization tool.
• Academic Freedom in the UK A summary of a report about attitudes towards academic freedom in the UK conducted by Eric Kaufmann, Professor and Assistant Dean of Politics at University of London, and Tom Simpson, Associate Professor of Philosophy and Public Policy at University of Oxford.
• Attitudes About Free Speech on Campus are Changing (Part 1) In this three-part series, former HxA researcher Sean Stevens analyzes data in response to claims from skeptics that the threats to open inquiry and free speech on college campuses are overblown. See Part 2 and Part 3.
• Few Academics Support Cancel Culture Eric Kaufman shows that only 1 in 10 academics in the social sciences and humanities back campaigns to dismiss professors who report controversial findings around race and gender. 

Podcast Episodes

• What are the Limits of Viewpoint Diversity? with Nick Phillips
• Constructing Campus Craziness with Donald Moynihan
• Monopolized By None: The Crisis of Academic Freedom Has No Party with Madeleine Kearns and Ian Storey 
• Free Expression at American Universities with Jeff Jones and David Askenazi 
• Confident Pluralism with John Inazu 
• How Branding Stifles Academic Freedom with Alice Dreger

Tools and Resources

• All Minus One Based on John Stuart Mill’s famous essay, On Liberty, Mill’s work comes to life in a way that is accessible and relevant to modern readers. This page includes activities for classroom settings.
• The HxA Way Use these five norms and values in classrooms and at events to facilitate open inquiry, viewpoint diversity, and constructive disagreement.
• PEN America Campus Free Speech Guide Practical, principled guidance for students, faculty, and administrators with the aim of keeping campuses open to a broad range of ideas and perspectives.
• Discussion Guide: Your Voice is Your Superpower This book and discussion guide introduce young children to viewpoint diversity and free speech.
• Campus Expression Survey (CES) Manual To gauge the extent to which college students believe that they can safely express their opinions on your campus, you can administer the CES on your campus using this administration manual.