Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 8, 2023 / 10:00 am
Two Catholic universities rank near the bottom of the list of U.S. universities for free speech policies, an influential watchdog group revealed this week.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) listed both Georgetown University and Fordham University near the bottom of its 2023 College Free Speech Rankings, the nonprofit revealed on Wednesday.
FIRE, which began as a higher-education civil liberties watchdog but recently expanded to include off-campus advocacy of free speech rights, has been publishing the list since 2011. On Wednesday it placed Fordham at 244 of 248 colleges surveyed, with Georgetown ranking even lower, at 245.
Schools on the list are ranked overall as well as by individualized metrics. Fordham, for instance, ranked 189th in “disruptive conduct,” a measure of how acceptable students believe it is to disrupt speakers on campus with various tactics such as shouting or violence (lower rankings indicate higher levels of student acceptance of those tactics).