All three universities, located in New York and Massachusetts respectively, received “abysmal” rankings for their free speech climates in the annual report, released on Thursday by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. Harvard University retained its position as the lowest-ranked institution for free speech for the second consecutive year, the report noted.

“Some of the nation’s most lauded higher ed institutions are failing miserably in upholding First Amendment protections,” Sean Stevens, FIRE’s chief researcher, said in a statement. “Often these schools set the tone for the wider higher ed ecosystem, so it is imperative that they address these issues lest this failure drag the rights of a whole new generation of college students down with it.”

The report ranked the free speech climates of more than 250 American colleges and universities based on a survey of over 58,000 students nationwide. Most of the colleges and universities were ranked “average,” while only three received a “good” grade. The University of Virginia, Michigan Technological University and Florida State University had the healthiest speech climates in 2024, according to the report.

At least six colleges, including Liberty University in Virginia and Baylor University in Texas, were listed as “warning” schools with “policies that clearly and consistently state that it prioritizes other values over a commitment to freedom of speech.”

Other regional universities included in the FIRE report were Dartmouth College in New Hampshire — which ranked 224th and earned a “below average” grade — and the University of Vermont, which placed 233rd and received a “below average” rating. Rutgers University, New Jersey’s elite public school, also received a “below average” ranking, placing 198th in the list.

The report also delved into whether students felt they needed to self-censor themselves in response to the political climate on campuses. Students who self-described as “very conservative” reported self-censoring most often, with 34% saying they do so “very” or “fairly” often, according to the report. In contrast, only 15% of “very liberal” students reported self-censoring “very” or “fairly” often, according to FIRE’s pollsters.

FIRE also surveyed students’ views on the Israel-Hamas War, which has been the source of often violent demonstrations and occupations on many elite college campuses over the past year.

The foundation surveyed about 3,000 students for their views on encampments and protests on their campuses over the past year. Nearly three-quarters of students said it is “rarely acceptable,” while about 60% said it was “rarely acceptable” to occupy university buildings as part of demonstrations.

More than a quarter of Jewish students surveyed by the group said they feel “very” or “somewhat unsafe” on their college campuses, while nearly half of Muslim students said police responses to encampments made them feel unsafe.

“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 said. “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.”

Just look at funding to study the Middle East.

Beginning Oct. 20, university Middle Eastern studies centers have co-organized a weekly “Gaza in Context” series.

The sessions accept the premise of Gaza’s alleged “structural subjugation and apartheid existence” caused by Israel’s “settler colonialism.” The most recent session on Nov. 20 recasts the Hamas-Israel war as a war on the “children of Gaza.”

The list of co-organizers has grown and now includes centers or programs at George Mason University, Georgetown, Rutgers, Harvard, Brown, Columbia, the University of Chicago, CUNY, University of Illinois Chicago, George Washington University, New York University, and others.

At least five of those universities have recent grants under the Department of Education’s National Resource Centers Program to promote study of the Middle East. The same five—Chicago, Columbia, NYU, Georgetown, and George Washington University—also have recent grants to give fellowships under the Department of Education’s Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowships Program.

It’s increasingly difficult to see how these federal programs are achieving their mission.

The law establishing international and foreign language education programs emphasized the importance of educating American experts in order to protect the “security, stability, and economic vitality of the United States.”

That goal does not seem to be in the mission statements of Middle East studies centers.

Meanwhile, as critics have long noted, many of the federally funded academic centers also receive funds from abroad. The centers often produce graduates who have more sympathy for foreign countries than for the United States.

National Association of Scholars analyst Neetu Arnold produced an extensive report, aptly named “Hijacked,” showing how centers at many universities have been funded by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, or other Middle Eastern countries.

Critics of the Department of Education might have an uphill battle in abolishing the entire department. But while that goal should remain Plan A, an easy piece of the department to zero out is Title VI of the Higher Education Act, which funds international and foreign language education programs.

If members of Congress remain concerned about educating experts in foreign languages and cultures, they should remember that the government is already funding plenty of other ways to develop such experts. For example, the Department of Defense’s National Security Education Program serves some of international and foreign language education’s core purposes, and that agency is focused on national security.

But if members of Congress just cannot stomach ending a federal program, funding should at least be redirected away from universities whose centers work against American interests. Eligibility for the programs could be restricted to military academies, where we should be able to trust that students and graduates intend to serve and protect America.

I made several such recommendations in a report published earlier this year.

>>>READ THE REPORT: “Transforming Federal Foreign Language Programs to Serve U.S. Interests”

Higher education’s reputation is at a low point, particularly as university leaders, faculty members, and students demonstrate moral confusion at best and violent advocacy for terrorism at worst over the Hamas-Israel war.

And a new survey of employers shows that almost all of them deny that colleges are “graduating students with relevant skills that today’s business community needs.” Two out of five said that a college degree is irrelevant, while another two in five said a degree would make someone a less-attractive hire.

Now is a good time to listen to the public and stop funding university programs that prefer America’s antagonists to America and our friends.

This comes from the Network Contagion Research Institute’s (NCRI) latest report which found that most of the funds received by American tertiary educational institutions came from some of the most authoritarian regimes in the world, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. (Related: Demonstrating stunning disconnect from reality, dozens of Harvard student groups blame Israeli government for Hamas terror attacks.)

The group’s findings relied in part on a 2020 Department of Education report that revealed how billions in undeclared foreign donations made their way into major higher education institutions. Federal law requires colleges to disclose donations from foreign governments, but many schools still refuse to do so.

Many of these schools that failed to disclose the origin of their donations were more likely to have received such funding from Middle Eastern governments.

Worse yet, the NCRI warned that the schools that have likely received funding from Middle Eastern dictatorships have also seen a rise in anti-Israeli sentiment and intolerant behavior toward Jews and Judaism.

“A massive influx of foreign, concealed donations to American institutions of higher learning, much of it from authoritarian regimes with notable support from Middle Eastern sources, reflects or supports heightened levels of intolerance towards Jews, open inquiry and free expression,” read the report.

The report further warned that, from 2015 to 2020, “institutions that accepted money from Middle Eastern donors had, on average, 300 percent more antisemitic incidents than those institutions that did not.”

8 Ivy League universities received largest share of unreported foreign donations

The NCRI’s report did not name any specific colleges where an increase in funding from “undocumented” sources coincided with an increased antisemitic climate. However, the report did point out that eight Ivy League universities “were disproportionately represented,” and received the largest share of unreported foreign donations.

These include Cornell University, Harvard University, Yale University, Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania, which ranked second, third, sixth, 16th and 18th, respectively, among the top 20 universities that received funding from unreported sources.

“This report raises the sobering possibility that international actors are using undisclosed channels to funnel large amounts of money into college campuses (including elite institutions that often have outsized influence on American culture and politics) for purposes harmful to the democratic norms of pluralism, tolerance and freedom,” warned the authors of the report.

“There clearly has been an erosion of democratic norms on campuses… These developments are surely complex and multiply determined,” continued the report. “One possibility, however, is that receipt of undocumented funding from foreign sources, especially authoritarian ones, has contributed to these developments.”

Learn more about the wild things happening at college campuses at CampusInsanity.com. Watch this clip from Newsmax featuring political commentator Dinesh D’Souza explaining how leftist ideology justifies antisemitism.

This video is from the News Clips channel on Brighteon.com.

More related stories:

• Hospitals, churches, refugee camps and now a SCHOOL: Israel’s latest bombing decimated Al-Azhar University in Gaza.
• Hypocritical conservatives who mocked safe spaces for liberals now say they feel “unsafe” at work and school because they’re Jewish.
• NYPD Chief: “There was no danger to any students” at Cooper Union college pro-Palestine protest.
• SHOCKING: Recent ADL intern RIPS DOWN Israeli hostage posters on NYU campus.
• Stanford University instructor made Jewish students stand in a corner while downplaying Holocaust and calling Israel a “colonizer.”

Sources include:

• LawEnforcementToday.com
• WashingtonExaminer.com
• NYPost.com
• Brighteon.com