The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression released the report “Shifting Winds: Students Under Fire”, finding that 63% of over 1,000 efforts by administrators, student groups or student governments to suppress student speech led to “administrative investigation or punishment.”
The report, purporting to be the “most detailed collection of speech-related campus controversies involving students to date,” analyzes efforts to censor students at public universities who engage in “expressive activity” that the group contends is protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Two of the most dominant “incendiary topics on campus” that led to actions against protected speech in the last five years involve expressions on race after the killing of George Floyd in 2020 and the eruption of the war in Gaza that began in 2023.
The data shows the most targeted student groups nationwide are Students for Justice in Palestine (75 incidents), Turning Point USA (65 incidents) and the College Republicans (58 incidents).
FIRE also found a sharp uptick in cases being initiated by university administrators as opposed to students, largely a result of the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas against civilians in southern Israel that sparked Israel’s ongoing military offensive in Gaza.