Alumni, faculty, and students bring free speech commitment to Davidson College

By Jessica Wills

FIRE

March 16, 2023


Davidson College just took a big step toward building a more speech-friendly campus. Through its new “Commitment to Freedom of Expression,” Davidson promises its whole campus community will have the ability to work and learn without the risk of censorship. 


The commitment was formally adopted on March 6, 2023 and decisively states, “The role of the college is to sustain an environment in which all students can freely learn.” Furthermore, “It is not the proper role of the College to attempt to shield individuals from ideas and opinions they find uncomforting, disagreeable, or offensive.”


FIRE commends Davidson for clearly articulating that it’s always better to battle offensive speech with more speech rather than with censorship — stating that the potential discomfort free speech can cause is far outweighed by its benefits. 


According to the college’s press release, “The statement also confronts head-on the idea that the principles of diversity and free expression are at odds. Instead, the commitment declares, they are essential to each other.” 


Davidson argues that diversity and freedom of speech are complementary, not incompatible, as some would make them out to be. Guaranteeing free expression is the best way to ensure diverse people and ideas can flourish in the college environment.


“Our nation needs more of what Davidson can provide—a place where debate runs civilly and freely, in a residence hall or a lecture hall,” said former North Carolina governor James G. Martin, a Davidson alumnus and former faculty member who helped craft the free speech statement and who fervently believes in the value of a Davidson education. The commitment, Martin noted, was created by talking across differences between students, faculty, and alumni. “This commitment was crafted by a group who came from different backgrounds, experiences and ideologies, and those differences brought a lasting result.” 


Martin is also a member of Davidsonians for Freedom of Thought and Discourse, an alumni group whose advocacy work was instrumental in the statement’s adoption. The DFTD has petitioned the college for a free expression statement since 2018, when it sent a letter to then-college President Carol Quillen, asking her administration to adopt the “Chicago Statement,” like almost 100 other United States colleges and universities. The principles outlined in the statement are meant to encourage discussion across differences, protect civil liberties, and guarantee that students will leave college ready to participate in our democracy.


In 2021, President Quillen appointed a taskforce to develop a free expression statement specifically for Davidson College. Among the appointed task force members was Martin. In a couple of months, the task force returned with a statement that mirrored the Chicago Statement’s free speech protections. 


While waiting for the statement’s adoption, the alumni group collected 172 signatures, including 19 from former trustees of the college. In 2022, they submitted these signatures to the board of trustees, to encourage it to adopt the free expression statement drafted by the taskforce. 


Finally, on March 6, 2023, under the leadership of new college President Douglas A. Hicks, Davidson announced its formal adoption of a free expression statement entitled “Davidson’s Commitment to Freedom of Expression.” Watching this years-long struggle to bring a free expression statement to Davidson reminds us at FIRE that the work we’re doing with alumni activists is worthwhile. 


John E. Craig, chairman of the DFTD Board of Directors, said, DFTD “is delighted that Davidson's faculty has affirmed a strong Freedom of Expression Statement. Our DFTD alumni group has been urging for this since 2018, and we are grateful for the careful thought and hard work that went into the creation and now affirmation of the Statement.” 


Alumni often reach out to FIRE because they are frustrated with their college’s tendency to censor students and faculty. They reminisce about the great debates they had during undergrad and shake their heads at the thought that their children and grandchildren might not have the same opportunity. Some become convinced that there is nothing they can do to help their alma maters. But the success of alumni groups like Davidsonians for Freedom of Thought and Discourse prove alumni, especially together, have the power to create real change for their alma maters. 


Alumni, faculty, and students bring free speech commitment to Davidson College | The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (thefire.org)

Where Liberty and Learning Endure

June 29, 2026
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June 21, 2026
By Todd Zywicki The Wall Street Journal June 21, 2026 Auburn University is known for its agricultural and STEM programs, its flight school and athletic programs. But the land-grant university recently became notable for another reason: The board of trustees is taking control of the school back from its faculty. The board began seizing the university’s academic programs—including curriculum, course offerings, degree requirements and academic credentials—at its June 5 meeting. The board also dissolved the faculty senate and replaced it with an advisory council to the president, which includes two faculty members from each of the university’s colleges and additional members appointed by the president. The board’s assertion of authority mirrors incoming mandates by the Alabama Legislature restricting the role of faculty senates in the state’s public university system. Predictably, Auburn’s faculty has responded with howls of outrage, decrying these intrusions on the faculty’s authority over academic operations. How could outsiders appointed through a political process have the expertise to make such delicate decisions? I’ve been a professor at a state university for almost 30 years, and I am sympathetic up to a point. But before becoming a professor I was a bankruptcy lawyer. And bankruptcy law teaches an important lesson for how academia can respond to this moment. Bankruptcy gives businesses an opportunity to admit mistakes, reform and emerge stronger. Successful enterprises don’t need bankruptcy lawyers. But when an enterprise loses its way, it goes into receivership. Most universities aren’t financially bankrupt but have lost their mission and direction. Society has long recognized certain institutions’ authority to manage their own affairs. Two notable examples are licensed professionals—such as doctors and lawyers—and universities. Universities, even state universities, have run their enterprises with minimal external oversight. Faculties enjoyed substantial rights of self-governance because they committed to higher standards than those required by ordinary jobs. Professors would establish and maintain standards of scholarly integrity, freedom of speech and inquiry, and rigorous dedication to merit-based assessment of research in specialized areas. They policed their own house, enforcing norms of truth-seeking, maintaining scholarly integrity and rigor, and ensuring that students emerged with basic knowledge, employable skills and civic competency. But over the past several decades, commitment to those values collapsed. Surveys by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression consistently reveal fear among students and faculty around expressing unfashionable ideas. Universities have seen shout-downs, cancellations and even violence against speakers. Merit and quality yielded to “diversity” and “equity.” Truth-seeking has been displaced by faddish theories and ideologically charged teaching and research. Professors design esoteric departments and teach niche classes to cliques of activist students while the needs of other students and taxpayers for real education go unaddressed. Like companies I represented, universities have lost their way. And many have proved either unable or unwilling to self-correct. When that happens, it is appropriate to put institutions into receivership until they reform and rededicate themselves to their mission. At Auburn incoming students must now take certain required civics and history courses to master basic competency in U.S. history and government. To ensure the classes actually meet that objective, professors will have to make their syllabi publicly available. In the classroom, instructors will be expected to stick to the matter at hand and avoid free-ranging political punditry. Just as other companies can learn from the ones that go bankrupt, other institutions of higher education can learn something from Auburn: Fix what’s broken, or someone else might fix it for you. Mr. Zywicki is a professor at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School. He was a Dartmouth College trustee, 2005-09. https://www.wsj.com/opinion/bankruptcy-and-higher-education-4c2b178e

Race Preferences Are Falling Nationwide

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By the Editorial Board The Wall Street Journal June 19, 2026 The Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling against racial preferences is turning out to be a landmark with profound consequences as its influence spreads. On Thursday the famously progressive Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled unanimously that a state program that issued scholarships based on race violates the U.S. Constitution. Justice Annette Ziegler wrote for the court that the Constitution requires “that every person ‘must be treated based on his or her experiences as an individual—not on the basis of race,’” and that the state cannot “use race as a factor in affording educational opportunities among its citizens.” That must have been painful for the activist liberal majority on the court. In a concurrence, Wisconsin Chief Justice Jill Karofsky took some shots at Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard College (2023) before acknowledging that “I am bound by the precedent set forth in SFFA” and other Supreme Court rulings “when interpreting the Fourteenth Amendment.” The case was brought by the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty against a 1985 Badger State law that reserved need-based scholarships through a grant program for “Black American,” “American Indian,” “Hispanic” and some Southeast Asian undergraduate students enrolled in Wisconsin’s private and technical colleges. Last week the Iowa Supreme Court ruled that a scholarship program earmarked for black University of Iowa students studying physical sciences was “impracticable” under SFFA. State governments would be wise to repeal these discriminatory grant programs, or the courts will do it for them.
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