US Universities Launch Partnership To Elevate Free Speech

The presidents of 13 universities in the United States are elevating free speech on their campuses this academic year, as part of a new nonprofit initiative announced Tuesday to combat what organizers call dire threats to U.S. democracy.

The Campus Call for Free Expression will take different forms on different campuses. The campaign, created by The Institute for Citizens & Scholars with funding from the Knight Foundation, is designed to cultivate the freedom of expression on campuses and help students work together to find solutions to complicated, divisive problems.

“The national context of the deep political polarization, the inability of people to speak across difference in constructive and civil ways, it seems to me that colleges and universities need to be the institutions at the forefront of showing a better way to do that,” said Jonathan Alger, president of James Madison University, which is participating in the initiative.