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Last year, Harvard earned the worst score ever recorded in ��ݮ��ƵAPP����’s College Free Speech Rankings: Zero. This year, the elite Ivy makes a repeat poor performance — and finds fresh company at the bottom, with NYU and Columbia joining the unenviable list of “abysmal” schools for free speech.

With scores ranging from zero to 100, NYU plummeted nearly 30 points this year, and Columbia fared even worse, becoming the second school after Harvard to ever receive a zero. And Columbia, like Harvard, actually received a negative score that we rounded up to zero. The only reason Columbia was spared from receiving the title of this year’s Worst College for Free Speech is that Harvard’s actual score was even worse, a full 21 points lower.

So why did NYU and Columbia fare so poorly? In short, their responses to campus speech controversies after the October 7 terror attacks in Israel, and to subsequent campus protests, demonstrated a total lack of regard for expressive rights. Both schools experienced numerous deplatformings and attempted disruptions of events on campus, and both have also sanctioned scholars, , and . 

Almost all of these recent controversies involved speech about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

NYU targets pro-Palestinian speech

On multiple occasions since October 7, NYU administrators repeatedly targeted faculty and students who expressed pro-Palestinian views and cited vague security concerns to restrict student group events. 

NYU launched a full-scale investigation into a student who emailed the student body arguing that Israel bore responsibility for the October 7 attacks. ��ݮ��ƵAPP���� wrote the school urging it to cease the investigation because the student’s speech was protected by NYU’s policies. NYU instead doubled down on punishing protected expression. In December 2023, it suspended professor Amin Husain after a video was circulated of Husain denying allegations that Hamas beheaded babies during the terrorist attack on Israel.

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Then, in early 2024, NYU’s campus chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine invited Columbia professor Rashid Khalidi to discuss his book, “The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine,” and the current conflict in Gaza with NYU professor Sinan Antoon. When initially scheduled, the event was only open to those with an NYU affiliation. SJP requested NYU open the event to the public but NYU rejected this request because of concerns about “contentious speakers.” An administrator then  to the group for suggesting that Khalidi was a “contentious” speaker, and the group still held the event privately, as originally scheduled. 

Towards the end of last semester, the university  student protesters facing discipline to write reflection papers to articulate whether the protesters’ actions aligned with their “personal values.”

The catch? The protesters were explicitly prohibited from “justifying” their actions. Failure to demonstrate enough remorse would result in administrators returning the papers to the protesters for further revision until they demonstrated sufficient remorse. The situation at NYU has gotten dire enough that ��ݮ��ƵAPP���� plans to file an accreditor complaint in the coming weeks if the university remains silent on these violations of expressive rights, which we told the university in a Sept. 6 letter. NYU was penalized in the College Free Speech rankings for each of the incidents, as well as an additional 3 speaker deplatforming incidents.

Columbia crusades against its own professors

Columbia has directed its wrath mostly at professors. With one exception, Columbia targeted and sanctioned scholars for pro-Palestinian, rather than pro-Israeli, speech.

Columbia refused to renew the contract of assistant professor Abdul Kayum Ahmed after a  obtained recordings of a lecture in which Ahmed called Israel a colonial settler state and encouraged students to engage in activism against it. Columbia also fired Mohamed Abdou, a professor of Modern Arab Studies, after the House Committee on Education & the Workforce investigated Columbia’s hiring of him. 

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Columbia also investigated Shai Davidai, a professor of management in Columbia’s business school, and Tonika Boston, a professor of social work, for expression regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The university investigated Davidai for a series of X posts admonishing pro-Palestinian student groups and protesters, and Boston after social work students complained about in-class comments in which she doubted the veracity of media reports of sexual violence against Israeli women on October 7. Columbia was penalized for each of these incidents, as well as the deplatforming of a film screening planned by LionzLez, a student organization “for queer women and nonbinary people run by students of color” at Columbia, after the group’s president and founder, Lizzy George-Griffin, defended a controversial flier promoting the event in an email. Columbia was also penalized for two incidents where protesters attempted to disrupt speaking events, both of which featured Hillary Clinton as a panelist.

Students lack confidence in administrators

NYU’s and Columbia’s behavior haven’t gone unnoticed by students. The “Administrative Support” component of ��ݮ��ƵAPP����’s College Free Speech Rankings measures to what degree students think their college administration supports and protects free speech on campus. This year, NYU ranks 245 out of 251 schools on “Administrative Support.” Columbia ranks 247. 

In response to the encampment protests, ��ݮ��ƵAPP���� and College Pulse reopened this year’s rankings survey on any campus with an encampment. This allowed us to analyze changes in student perceptions of their campus speech climate from before the encampment protests started to after they began. Our analyses indicate that “Administrative Support” declined among NYU and Columbia students after the encampment protests began.

Prior to the start of the encampment protests, almost a third (29%) of NYU students said it is “extremely” or “very” clear that their administration defends free speech on campus. Roughly the same amount (31%) said it is “not at all” or “not very” clear that their administration would do the same. After the encampment protests began, 13% of NYU students said it is “extremely” or “very” clear that their administration defends free speech on campus, while 58% said it is “not at all” or “not very” clear.

Whether a school truly supports free expression as a core value is revealed when that school is tested by controversy. According to their students, NYU and Columbia are failing this test.

Similarly, before the encampments, 19% of NYU students said it is “extremely” or “very” likely that their administration would defend a speaker’s rights during a controversy over offensive speech, while 41% said this would be “not at all” or “not very” likely. After the encampments began, however, the percentage of NYU students who expressed being “extremely” or “very” likely that their administration would defend a speaker’s rights during a controversy over offensive speech fell to just 12%, while half of NYU students said this would be “not at all” or “not very” likely.

We found a similar pattern at Columbia. Prior to the encampments, almost a fifth (17%) of students said it is “extremely” or “very” clear that their administration defends free speech on campus, but half of the students said that it is “not at all” or “not very” clear that their administration does so. After the encampments began, a fifth of students said it is “extremely” or “very” clear that their administration defends free speech on campus, and three-fifths said it is “not at all” or “not very” clear that it does so. 

Columbia students’ confidence that their administration would defend a speaker’s rights during a controversy over offensive speech also declined after the encampments began. Before the encampments, 17% of Columbia students said it is “extremely” or “very” likely that their administration would defend a speaker’s rights during a controversy over offensive speech, while 37% said this would be “not at all” or “not very” likely. After the encampments began, 14% of Columbia students said it is “extremely” or “very” likely that their administration would defend a speaker’s rights during a controversy over offensive speech, while almost half (46%) said this is “not at all” or “not very” likely.

Tested by controversy

College and university administrators can do a lot to influence the expression climate on campus for the better. It starts with establishing and maintaining clear policies that defend expressive rights — not ambiguous ones that administrators can apply arbitrarily. However, maintaining clear, speech-protective policies does not guarantee that a school actively supports free speech. 

Even if FIRE awarded NYU and Columbia its highest “green light” ratings for their speech policies, neither school’s ranking would improve much in this year’s report. NYU’s score would increase to 18.33, and it would move up to 246 in the rankings. Columbia’s score would increase to 14.42, and it would move up to 248 in the rankings.

Whether a school truly supports free expression as a core value is revealed when that school is tested by controversy. 

According to their students, NYU and Columbia are failing this test.