UW-Madison ranks low in latest campus free speech rankings

(The Center Square) – The University of Wisconsin–Madison scores near the bottom in the latest campus free speech rankings.

The latest report from FIRE, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, and College Pulse ranks more than 250 colleges and universities based on their speech policies, and the tone on campus as reported by students.

UW-Madison comes in at number 227 on the list.

“Seventy-three percent of students say shouting down a speaker to prevent them from speaking on campus is at least rarely acceptable,” the report states. “Thirty percent of students say using violence to stop someone from speaking on campus is at least rarely acceptable.”

Students who responded to the survey criticized the recent pro-Palestinian protests on campus.

“Being Jewish – there is currently a lot of anti-Jewish activism that gets caught up in anti-Israel protesting. These are not the same thing and should not be treated as such. Times like these make me uncomfortable when it would come to expressing opinions— this is largely due to general cancel culture,” one of the unmanned students told FIRE.

Another echoed the same theme.

“Right now, I feel like I cannot give my opinion on the Israel Palestine war because of what my professors and other students would think,” a senior student added.

The Madison campus generally gets dinged for its lack of openness to other ideas, the high number of students who want to censor certain speakers, and the large number of students who say they don’t speak their minds out of fear.

“These rankings highlight a pivotal moment in higher education, where the tension between maintaining a free speech environment and navigating deeply polarizing issues is more pronounced than ever,” FIRE CEO Greg Lukianoff said in a statement.

He also noted that campus protests over the war in Gaza drove many of the reactions from students in this year’s Free Speech Survey.

“The Middle East crisis plunged campuses into absolute chaos last academic year and administrators largely failed in their response, clamping down on free speech protections instead of fostering spaces for open dialogue,” Lukianoff added. “The nightmare scenarios of last spring cannot be repeated this fall. Colleges need to reassert their mantle of being marketplaces of ideas, not bubbles of groupthink and censorship.”

Harvard is the worst school for free speech according to the report, coming in at number 251. The University of Virginia is ranked the best school for free speech this fall.