“The first step is to remind our students and colleagues that those who hold views contrary to one’s own are rarely evil or stupid, and may know or understand things that we do not. It is only when we start with this assumption that rational discourse can begin, and that the winds of freedom can blow." – Former Stanford Provost John Etchemendy
FEATURED ITEMS
Vanderbilt's Declaration of First Principles -- The University and Its Purpose
Report of the Yale Committee on Trust in Higher Education
Restoring the Academic Social Contract
-- Stanford alum and U Texas-Austin Provost William Inboden
Guiding Principles -- Stanford President Jon Levin and Provost Jenny Martinez
From Our Latest Newsletter
"To Be True To The Best You Know" -- Jane Stanford
October 26, 2026
Majority of College Students Say Free Speech Threatened
Excerpts (link in the original):
“A record share of college students believe their right to free speech is under threat, new data shows.
“Just 37 percent of college students said free speech is secure, compared to 73 percent in 2016, according to a survey of more than 1,000 college students that the Knight Foundation released Tuesday in partnership with Ipsos.
“‘That’s the lowest level that’s ever been observed,’ said Ricardo Mor, program officer for the Knight Foundation’s information and society team. ‘It’s an alarming trend.’...
“Even if it feels tenuous, young people -- including college students -- still value free speech. According to the survey, 84 percent of college students said it’s either extremely or very important.
“At the same time, college students are increasingly interested in their institutions protecting them from speech perceived as biased or offensive. Forty-six percent of survey respondents this year (the highest number on record) said colleges should ‘allow students to be exposed to all types of speech,’ compared to 82 percent in 2017. Meanwhile, 28 percent of students said colleges should protect them by prohibiting potentially offensive speech, compared to 18 percent in 2017.” ...
Full article at Inside Higher Ed.
See also “Four in 10 Students Believe Offensive Speech Should Be Subject to Criminal Prosecution” at College Fix: “Four in 10 college students believe offensive speech should be subject to criminal prosecution, according to the results of a nationwide survey published this month by the Buckley Institute.... In contrast, by a 73 percent to 20 percent margin, students said the Constitution is a very important document for the country rather than an outdated one, the results show. It also found that 87 percent say the First Amendment is an important amendment that still needs to be followed and respected in today’s society.”
Speechless -- An Exclusive Look at Democracy Today
What happens to a democracy when it loses faith in free speech?
Excerpts (links in the original):
. . . .
“In contrast to my undergraduate experience, it now felt as though speech had become weaponized, vocabulary circumscribed, and the promotion of free expression minimized. Students were censoring themselves, afraid to use language or take positions that might offend. I began to act the same way. Even at my advanced age, retired after a successful career, I wanted to get along and make friends with other students. Who wants to be a pariah? ...
“. . . Speechless is a documentary by Canadian filmmaker Ric Esther Bienstock. The film chronicles the emergence of cancel culture across a swath of college campuses over the last decade. It has screened in Canada and the U.K. but has yet to open in the U.S., which is why FAIR’s upcoming screening on October 28th at 7 pm ET is so special!
“In 2015, after reading the essay The Coddling of the American Mind, by Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff, which described alien concepts like ‘safe spaces,’ ‘micro-aggressions’ and ‘cultural appropriation,’ Bienstock wondered what had caused university life to change so much. It appeared to her that, in an effort to include and protect, we had inadvertently created new, more easily twisted forms of exclusion and censorship. That her own children were of university age added extra urgency to her concern. She decided to put her camera to work, hoping to document this alarming cultural phenomenon.
“Speechless captures the rise of cancel culture as it emerged from left-leaning politics and began to spread across the political spectrum. The story begins in 2017 at Evergreen State College in Washington, where a white biologist objected to the school’s ‘Day of Absence,’ which asked that white people stay off campus for the day in recognition of the contributions made by people of color. His resistance ignited a firestorm that reportedly sizzled on camera. According to one review, Bienstock herself is branded a white supremacist for asking a student basic questions....
“College campuses today appear to be as polarized as ever. Speechless doesn’t set out to offer solutions, but instead shows how we got here. The film promises a front-row seat for anyone interested in this aspect of the culture wars. Those wondering how we went from lionizing Mario Savio on the steps of Sproul Hall to widespread self-censorship, and then to the defunding of DEI programs, will want to see it. I know I do.”
Full article at FAIR.
Cornell’s Limited Self-Critique
A faculty report portrays higher ed as a victim, not the cause of its loss of public prestige
Excerpts:
“Universities are figuring out that they’ve lost public confidence, but not many are offering more than lip service as a reform effort. An example is a Cornell University faculty committee report this week that purports to chart a new course for ‘the future of the American university.’
“The 238-page report presents universities as victims of broader cultural forces without confronting their own role in forming them. These include ‘increased tribalism and political polarization,’ ‘growing anxiety, isolation, and mental distress,’ and ‘surging economic uncertainty and high tuition costs that encourage students to focus on financial returns and to avoid risk.’ ...
“Graduating students, the report says, lack an ‘ability to handle uncertainty and solve problems that do not have clear answers, a readiness to absorb critical feedback and recover from setbacks, and working in teams that require compromise with others who do not share their perspective or assumptions.’ This is an indictment of schools more than of students.
“The report also brushes past how faculty hiring encourages ideological homogeneity. The heavily Democratic skew of the faculty lounge, the report says, is ‘an uninformative metric in an era of both polarization and realignment.’ Perhaps it’s ‘uninformative’ because it cuts too close to home.” ...
Full editorial at WSJ (September 24, 2026).
See also “The Future of the American University” at Cornell provost website, and a downloadable PDF copy of the full report is available here.
Other Articles of Interest
Universities Have Promoted Sexual Debauchery for More Than a Decade
Full article at College Fix: "What does it all mean? It means we can’t have it both ways. Colleges cannot promote sexual debauchery then act all shocked and offended when sexual debauchery takes place under their noses." Including a detailed history and links at Cornell, Yale, Penn, Brown, Harvard, Chicago, Princeton, Tennessee, Wisconsin, USC and Georgia State. See also “Vulva Cupcakes, BDSM Lessons and Pole Dancing -- Inside Sex Week at Stanford” at Stanford Review.
A College-by-College Guide to Which Majors Pay Off and Which Ones Don’t
Full interactive chart at NY Times. “The place to get the single most lucrative degree in America wasn’t in the Ivy League, and it wasn’t in a computer science program. It was in the mathematics department at Duke, where the median income among graduates was $297,029.” NOTE: If interested, try different majors at Stanford and compare them to schools elsewhere.
See also the U.S. Census Bureau’s Post-Secondary Employment Outcomes (PSEO) interactive website for similar information about earnings. Although California colleges and universities are not yet included pending voluntary data-sharing agreements with California schools and state agencies, this Census Bureau website offers a different and possibly more accurate presentation of comparative earnings for various majors.
Medical Schools Need to Open the Gates
Full article at James Martin Center: “America’s medical schools do not train enough doctors, creating a growing shortage of quality physicians. This shortage is widely recognized and lamented, but the cause of the problem is often misdiagnosed. Observers from all ends of the political spectrum blame Congress, which ‘capped’ subsidies for medical residencies in 1997. In reality, there are simply not enough U.S. medical school graduates.”
Harvard Logs $100M Surplus Despite 20% Drop in Federal Research Money
Full article at Higher Ed Dive.
48% of Employers Say AI Will Make College Degrees More Important
Full article at Inside Higher Ed. See also “Dear Higher Ed, Employers Are Talking” at Minding the Campus.
Learning from Leaders in Reform (video, one hour)
Full video at YouTube of a panel discussion hosted last week by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) including Vanderbilt Chancellor Daniel Diermeier, UNC Trustee Marty Kotis, former and currently interim Purdue President Mitch Daniels and former Virginia Tech and Appalachian State Prof. Martha McCaughey.
Why We Care -- Samples of Current Teaching, Research and Other Activities at Stanford
Click on each article for direct access; selections are from Stanford Report and other Stanford websites.
In Response to Use of AI, Stanford Implements New Policies for Introductory Courses
Students Practice Civic Dialogue at Stanford
Cartilage Can’t Heal Well, but That May Change
Satellites Detect Methane Emissions in Large-Scale Test
What Kind of Citizen Are You? -- New Tool Explores What It Means to Be an Effective Citizen
A direct link to the survey is here.
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“Professors are stewards of intellectual life. Their task is not to amplify outrage but to cultivate argument. When they fail, they betray both their students and their profession. When professors trade evidence for indignation, they do not teach citizens; they train partisans.” -- Stanford alum and Sarah Lawrence Prof. Samuel J. Abrams
Comments and Questions from Our Readers
See more reader comments on our Reader Comments webpage.
Need Dialog, Not Prohibitions
I suggest the university produce forums in which ultimate concerns about war and peace presently unfolding be formally debated, subject to the rules of decorum. This is what the university is for, not prohibitions on argument or advocacy. Silence renders learning impossible.
Hoping for Balanced Speech at Stanford
I am so in support of the opinions expressed here and hope Stanford will adopt a more balanced approach to free speech. I can only hope.
Teaching Young People and Others How to Disagree Civilly
While I believe that supporting free speech is very important in and of itself, I also believe that there is a related component that is often ignored. That component is teaching people, especially young people, how to disagree civilly/how to constructively respond to free speech they might not agree with.
Question About Ties to the Alumni Association
Q. I notice that the SAA website contains no links to the Stanford Alumni for Free Speech and Critical Thinking website. Why is that?
A. Our website is not linked at the SAA website since we intentionally did not seek to become an affiliate of SAA. Among other things, we wanted to maintain independence, including since SAA became a subsidiary of
the university in the mid-1990’s. That said, there are a number of current and former Stanford administrators and trustees who receive our Newsletters and read the materials that are posted at the website.
About Us
Member, Alumni Free Speech Alliance
Stanford Alumni for Free Speech and Critical Thinking is an independent, diverse, and nonpartisan group of Stanford alumni committed to promoting and safeguarding freedom of thought and expression, intellectual diversity and inclusion, and academic freedom at Stanford.
We believe innovation and positive change for the common good is achieved through free and active discourse from varying viewpoints, the freedom to question both popular and unpopular opinions, and the freedom to seek truth without fear of reprisal from those who disagree, within the confines of humanity and mutual respect.
Our goal is to support students, faculty, administrators, and staff in efforts that assure the Stanford community is truly inclusive as to what can be said in and outside the classroom, the kinds of speakers that can be invited, and what should always be the core principles of a great university like Stanford. We also advocate that Stanford incorporates the Chicago Trifecta, the gold standard for freedom of speech and expression at college and university campuses, and that Stanford abides by these principles in both its policies and its actions.