PHILADELPHIA — Students and faculty are increasingly being investigated and punished for exercising their right to protected speech on college campuses, according to a new report.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, or FIRE, found the number of students punished by university administration or student government for protected speech rose sharply between 2020 and 2024. Nearly two-thirds of these controversies resulted in some form of punishment.
Sean Stevens, the foundation’s chief research adviser, said students with left-leaning speech are more often singled out for investigations and discipline.
“Almost everybody is facing these threats,” he said. “I think it shows to a lot of people, who previously would say ‘there’s not really that much of a problem, etc, etc.’ Now I think they recognize there can be. So yeah, now I think there’s a lot bigger cause for concern because it’s also coming from the government.”
The federal government has begun revoking the visas of international students for pro-Palestine activism. President Donald Trump has defended the efforts to revoke visas and crack down on protests, calling the pro-Palestine support in particular “pro-terrorist” and “antisemitic.”
Stevens said national politics frequently affect what students protest — which can subsequently lead to stifled speech on campus. In 2020, most speech controversies dealt with racism in the wake of George Floyd’s murder by a police officer in Minneapolis. Others involving gender saw a spike in the months before and after the U.S. Supreme Court’s repeal of Roe v. Wade, restricting abortion access in many states.
Then, Stevens pointed out, Hamas attacked Israel.
“Oct. 7 occurs in 2023, and the last few years has — a lot of the controversies we see are about Israel-Palestine,” he said. “What’s going on in 2025 is a shift towards government sanctions of largely pro-Palestinian speech.”
Universities across the Commonwealth had been a hotbed for pro-Palestinian activism, with encampments on campuses at the University of Virginia, Virginia Tech and Virginia Commonwealth.
Support for this reporting was provided by Lumina Foundation.
