Joanne Jacobs
‘Proud Boys’ interrupt Pride event
Drag Queen Story Hour was starting at a Bay Area library when a group of men entered shouting homophobic and transphobic slurs, reports...
Joanne Jacobs
- Jun 7
- 2 min
Teens back free speech for unpopular views
U.S. high school students and their teachers agree that people should be allowed to express unpopular opinions, according to the Knight...
Joanne Jacobs
- Jun 7
- 3 min
FIRE expands free-speech advocacy
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education is renaming itself the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (still FIRE) as...
Joanne Jacobs
- May 22
- 1 min
If you want to speak up, you’d better be a saint
Princeton’s president wants to fire a tenured classics professor, but claims it’s not because he criticized “anti-racist” proposals,...
Joanne Jacobs
- May 22
- 2 min
‘Loyalty oaths’ return as ‘diversity statements’
Professors who want tenure or promotion at the University of Illinois will have to submit a statement declaring how they support...
Joanne Jacobs
- May 15
- 2 min
The young Puritans
Overprotected by their parents, Gen Snowflake demands that college “make them comfortable,” argued Greg Lukianoff, a First Amendment...
Joanne Jacobs
- May 10
- 2 min
Causing discomfort remains legal
Lessons that cause students discomfort remain legal everywhere, even in Florida, writes Peter Minowitz, a Santa Clara University...
Joanne Jacobs
- Jan 16
- 1 min
Did feds solicit ‘parents as terrorists’ letter?
A National School Boards Association (NSBA) letter suggesting protesting parents may be guilty of “domestic terrorism” launched an FBI...
Joanne Jacobs
- Apr 30, 2019
- 1 min
What About The 1st Amendment?
Remember that “free speech movement” that started in Berkeley? It didn’t stick: Middlebury College’s Student Government Association has...
Joanne Jacobs
- Apr 27, 2019
- 1 min
It’s Not Just The President
In the wake of President Trump’s executive order last month to protect free speech or lose funding, some in higher education join the...
Joanne Jacobs
- Sep 5, 2018
- 2 min
Spoiled children
A college education isn’t intended to make people think any more, write Greg Lukianoff, a First Amendent specialist, and Jonathan Haidt,...
Joanne Jacobs
- May 31, 2018
- 1 min
Free speech trumps ‘offensiveness’
Oregon’s Liberty High School must respect a student’s free-speech rights to wear a “Donald J. Trump Border Wall Construction Co.”...
Joanne Jacobs
- May 26, 2018
- 2 min
Do We Have A Right *Not* To Be Offended In School?
Is this a 1st Amendment issue? Or does the school have a blanket policy against the wear of *any* seemingly-political messages on student...
Joanne Jacobs
- Mar 15, 2018
- 1 min
Can school OK some protests, but not others?
If a school lets students walk out, without penalty, to protest gun violence, is it obliged to allow walkouts for other issues? What...
Joanne Jacobs
- Feb 23, 2018
- 1 min
Don’t talk about guns — or square-root signs
A Louisiana teenager who joked that the square-root sign looks like a gun has been barred from school and faces an expulsion hearing,...
Joanne Jacobs
- Feb 18, 2018
- 2 min
Can schools police social media? Should they?
A California girl was suspended from the basketball team for retweeting Snoop Dogg holding what appears to be a marijuana joint, reports...
Joanne Jacobs
- Nov 4, 2017
- 3 min
Reed rebels — against ‘anti-racist’ disruptors
At Reed College, possibly the most liberal liberal-arts college in the country, first-year students are standing up to an “anti-racist”...
Joanne Jacobs
- Nov 3, 2017
- 1 min
College fees fund controversial groups, speakers
Mandatory student fees that fund clubs and guest speakers are under scrutiny from the right and left at college campuses, writes Jon...
Joanne Jacobs
- Oct 19, 2017
- 2 min
College kids want free speech to be nice
Less than half of college students know that “hate speech” is protected by the First Amendment and some of those wish it weren’t, reports...