The number of controversies over speakers on college campuses has risen sharply in the last 15 years, says a
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The number of controversies over speakers on college campuses has risen sharply in the last 15 years, says a report released on Wednesday by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a free-speech advocacy group known as FIRE.
FIRE researched what it called “disinvitation incidents” at public and private colleges since 2000, collecting data from news accounts and cases submitted to the foundation and other groups. Those incidents describe controversies in which there were demands that an invited speaker not be allowed to address a campus. FIRE acknowledged that its research was not exhaustive, but said its data document “a culture of censorship” on campuses in the last 15 years.
The group analyzed 192 incidents involving campus speakers, including speeches at commencement ceremonies and at other events throughout the year. The number of attempts to block those speakers rose sharply beginning in 2007, the report said, and peaked last year, with 29 incidents.
The report did not have complete data for 2014, but commencement season this spring has seen a rash of controversies. Commencement speakers withdrew in the face of protests at Rutgers University, Smith College, and Haverford College, where the replacement speaker, William G. Bowen, a former president of Princeton University, spoke out against such protests.
