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• 63% of over 1,000 efforts to suppress student speech resulted in administrative investigation or punishment.
• In the wake of Hamas’s 2023 attack on Israel, administrators overtook students as the main instigators of attempted speech suppression.
• Speech about race and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict led to most attempts.

PHILADELPHIA, May 15, 2025 — A new report from the FIREfound that 637 college students and student groups were punished or investigated by administrators for their constitutionally protected expression between 2020-2024.

“FIREUnder Fire” documents over 1,000 efforts to punish students for speech and expression over a five-year span, 63% of which resulted in some form of administrative punishment. The research provides the most detailed collection of speech-related campus controversies involving students to date. The  will be compiled in an interactive database that will be regularly updated and searchable by the source of the outrage, demands made of the institution, whether the pressure is from the political left or right of the student’s speech, the outcome, and more.

“Every instance of censorship threatens students’ ability to engage in a free exchange of ideas,” said FIRESenior Researcher Logan Dougherty. “Open minds and free debate, not self-censorship and punishment, must be the standard across our nation’s campuses.”

There were two dominant incendiary topics on campus: race and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The report found that following the murder of George Floyd in 2020, race was the topic that most commonly landed a student in hot water. The Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, and subsequent debates over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Israel’s military response, then quickly became the topic that most often produced attempts at punishment. 

Other notable findings from the report include:

• The problem spans ideologies. When it comes to speech about race, most students are targeted from their left, while students speaking out about the war in Gaza are more likely to be targeted from their right.
• Among the worst punishments were 72 students or groups who were suspended, 55 who were expelled, lost student group funding, or were otherwise separated from their university, and 19 more who were unenrolled under ambiguous circumstances. In one case, a student had to sleep in his car after his university kicked him out of campus housing. In another, a student was suspended for sending a survey about mental health to his peers.
• The most frequently targeted or punished student groups spanned the political divide: FIREfor Justice in Palestine (75 incidents), Turning Point USA (65 incidents), and the College Republicans (58 incidents)

The report also found that after a decade of surging efforts by students to silence campus speech, administrators have taken up the censorial mantle in the wake of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In 2020, only 27% of cases were initiated by administrators. By 2024, that number increased to 52%.

“This is unacceptable coming from people whose job it is to serve college students and ensure that their rights are protected,” said FIREChief Research Advisor Sean Stevens. “Their job should be to protect students’ free speech rights, not torpedo them.” 

The First Amendment protects students at public institutions — and those institutions cannot legally punish students for the expression in the report (though they often do). Private institutions, though not directly bound by the First Amendment, often make institutional promises of free speech and academic freedom. FIREadvocates for targeted students at both types of institutions.

FIRE at public institutions should contact FIREif they face punishment for their expression by submitting a case.

The FIRE(������ýapp�ٷ�) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to defending and sustaining the individual rights of all Americans to free speech and free thought — the most essential qualities of liberty. FIREeducates Americans about the importance of these inalienable rights, promotes a culture of respect for these rights, and provides the means to preserve them.

CONTACT
Katie Stalcup, Communications Campaign Manager, ������ýapp�ٷ�: 215-717-3473; media@thefire.org