Florida International University damaged its ranking after\u00a0attempting<\/a>\u00a0to punish students who protested the university\u2019s cooperation with federal immigration enforcement. Also, FIRE pointed to FIU\u2019s\u00a0arrest<\/a>\u00a0of a student\u00a0for sending WhatsApp messages in a large group chat asking Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to bomb campus.<\/p>\n The FIRE survey does not seem to factor in a Florida Atlantic University\u00a0professor<\/a> who was placed on leave because of social media posts related to Kirk and subsequently filed a lawsuit against the university.<\/p>\n The survey gauges \u201ccomfort expressing ideas, self-censorship, disruptive conduct, administrative support, openness, and political tolerance.\u201d<\/p>\n For Florida statewide, schools trended upward in five of those six categories and decreased in political tolerance.<\/p>\n According to FIRE, there are 1.53 \u201cliberal students\u201d for every \u201cconservative student\u201d at the surveyed Florida universities.<\/p>\n Of the 261 schools rated, 121 got an \u201cF\u201d for speech climate.<\/p>\n The nationwide overall free speech score of 61.4 out of 100 represents a seven-year high, according to FIRE. Florida scored 63.9.<\/p>\n \u201cToo many college administrators wield their power to cancel controversial speakers, cave to government or student calls for censorship, and limit academic freedom. This report emphasizes the need for colleges to embrace their constitutional obligations wholeheartedly,\u201d FIRE President and CEO Greg Lukianoff said in a\u00a0news release<\/a>.<\/p>\n Nationwide, 69% of students said shouting down a speaker they don\u2019t like is acceptable, a 3% decrease from last year. Similarly, 30% said using violence is acceptable, a decrease from 34% a year ago.<\/p>\n At Utah Valley University, the campus where conservative influencer Kirk was shot to death, of the 204 surveyed students 94% said it is never acceptable to use violence to stop a campus speech. The year before, 81% of surveyed students answered that way.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen asked to \u2018share a moment where you personally felt you could not express your opinion on your campus because of how you thought other students, a professor, or the administration would respond,\u2019 UVU students from across the political spectrum reported a chilling effect on their speech,\u201d FIRE\u2019s report states.<\/p>\n FIRE chief researcher Sean Stevens commented on the aftermath of Kirk\u2019s killing: \u201cRather than view the tragedy as a warning about the extreme results of partisanship and inability to peacefully engage in dialogue, many college admins took it as an invitation to double down on censorship.\u201d<\/p>\n The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Donald Trump, Kirk, abortion, immigration and transgender rights were atop the most difficult-to-discuss topics nationwide.<\/p>\n The top universities for free speech included the University of Chicago, Claremont McKenna College and Georgia Tech.<\/p>\n The lowest-ranked included Texas State University, University of Washington-Seattle and, very last, New York University.<\/p>\n Only 24 schools were graded at \u201cC\u201d or higher.<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n Reporting\u00a0by\u00a0Jay Waagmeester. Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501(c)(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor\u00a0Michael Moline\u00a0for questions:\u00a0[email\u00a0protected]<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Florida universities deserve a \u201cD\u201d for their free expression policies and attitudes, the Foundation for Individual Rights and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":397836,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[158522,3341,855,2845,28,3342,30,2846,29,1422,101718,11113,3603,158523,158524,158525,2511,2512],"class_list":["post-397835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-college-free-speech-rankings","tag-fau","tag-fire","tag-fiu","tag-florida","tag-florida-atlantic-university","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-international-university","tag-florida-news","tag-florida-state-university","tag-foundation-for-individual-rights-and-expression","tag-free-speech","tag-fsu","tag-greg-lukianoff","tag-jeffrey-harrison","tag-sean-stevens","tag-uf","tag-university-of-florida"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=397835"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397835\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/397836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Jake-Ad-July-2026-728-x-90-px72.jpg\")
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