Universities were once trusted as training grounds for democratic citizenship. They were meant to be places where young adults wrestle with complex questions, debate passionately and learn to live alongside those whose views they may find challenging. At their best, colleges modeled the virtues of listening, persuasion and tolerance, forming habits that would ripple outward into our civic life.
Those days are rapidly fading.
A new report from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) makes clear just how far our institutions have fallen. The 2026 College Free Speech Rankings reveal a landscape in free fall. A total of 166 schools received failing grades for their campus speech climate, while only 11 managed to earn even a C. The national average score — 58.63 — would be an F in any classroom.
These findings are not just numbers on a page. They reflect a profound cultural transformation. Students are no longer simply wary of controversial ideas; many are increasingly willing to shut them down altogether. In a matter of just a few years, the norms that once undergirded intellectual life have begun to collapse.
Perhaps the most alarming sign of this shift is the normalization of coercion. Today, 34% of students say it is acceptable to use violence to stop a campus speaker, at least in rare circumstances. Three years ago, that number was about one in five students. Since 2022, it has risen by 14 percentage points — a startling increase in such a short time. Support for nonviolent disruption is even more widespread. Now, 72% of students say shouting down a speaker is at least sometimes acceptable, and over half say it is occasionally permissible to physically block other students from attending an event.
These tactics, once unthinkable, are now treated as ordinary tools of protest. On many campuses, mobbing a speaker has replaced questioning one. This signals a fundamental breakdown. Universities should teach that arguments are answered with counterarguments, not fists or jeers. Instead, too many students are learning that silencing is easier than persuading. When young adults see that disruption works, they internalize the lesson that power, not reason, carries the day. That is not just a campus problem. It is a recipe for illiberalism far beyond the academy.
For years, campus controversies were portrayed as progressive students trying to “cancel” conservative voices. There was some truth to that. But FIRE’s data show that the problem has metastasized. For the first time, a majority of students opposed allowing any of six controversial speakers — evenly divided between three conservative and three progressive figures — to appear on campus. This marks a profound change. Students are no longer selectively silencing their ideological adversaries. Increasingly, they are rejecting the idea of open debate altogether. When both left- and right-leaning voices are equally unwelcome, a university ceases to be a marketplace of ideas. It becomes an echo chamber. Students do not grow by wrestling with ideas; they retreat into ideological bunkers, mistaking fragility for virtue.
Nothing illustrates this better than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Nationally, 53% of students say they cannot have an open, honest conversation about it on their campus. At Barnard, that number is a stunning 90%. This chilling effect follows the Oct. 7 attacks and the encampment protests that spread nationwide. Instead of fostering discussion, many universities allowed fear to take root. Entire subjects have now been placed beyond the realm of conversation. Students describe self-censoring in both class and private conversations. At precisely the moment when informed, nuanced dialogue is most needed, silence prevails. When a central global conflict cannot be debated or even named at universities, it signals a profound failure of higher education’s civic mission.
Beneath these troubling attitudes lies an equally troubling collapse of trust. Only 27% of students believe that it was “very” or “extremely” clear that the administration supports free speech on campus. At Barnard, distrust has reached rock bottom. The college’s score for administrative support of free expression is 6.52 — the lowest ever recorded, more than four standard deviations below the national average. The pattern holds across many elite schools. Columbia ranks second to last. Harvard, which held the bottom spot for two consecutive years, has climbed slightly to 245th out of 257, but still earns a failing grade. Prestige no longer signals principle. Some of America’s most storied institutions now rank among the worst in administrative distrust and protecting speech.
Even the “best” schools are far from exemplary. Claremont McKenna College tops the rankings with a score of 79.86 and a grade of B-. The rest of the top five all earned only a C. This suggests that the baseline for success is now simply avoiding disaster.
These findings are not just about campus politics. They have profound implications for the nation. The habits students develop in college — how they confront disagreement, respond to offense and view authority — shape the civic culture they will one day lead. If they graduate believing that violence is a legitimate response to speech, or that rules about behavior and conduct are not upheld fairly, they will carry those beliefs into every corner of public life.
The fact that support for violence has risen by 14 points in just a few years, and that nearly three-quarters now condone shouting down speakers, should alarm all Americans. This is not a slow, quiet decline. It is a rapid unraveling of the principles that make self-government possible.
Reversing this trend will require courage. Administrators must recommit to neutrality and enforce rules consistently, applying them equally no matter who is speaking. Faculty must reclaim classrooms as spaces for rigorous, uncomfortable debate where ideas are tested, not shielded. Students must rediscover the value of dialogue as the lifeblood of both scholarship and democracy.
The FIRE report paints a stark picture. On hundreds of campuses, the conditions for free inquiry are crumbling. Rebuilding them will not be easy. But the alternative — a generation raised to fear speech and embrace force — is far worse.