Texas State was listed among the 2018 top 10 worst colleges for free speech, according to a recent post by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.
FIRE is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to defending liberty, freedom of speech, due process, academic freedom, legal equality and freedom of conscience on America’s college campuses.
Harvard University, Drexel University and Fordham University are also on the list.
“The public deserves to know which colleges will defend free expression and which ones will go to seemingly any length to silence it,” FIRE Executive Director Robert Shibley stated on FIRE’s website. “This type of censorship makes for a sterile environment where lively debate and discussion can’t thrive.”
Texas State was placed on the list after recent events regarding the publication of the column “Your DNA is an Abomination,” when the administration claimed it was going to create a committee review to look over the editorial process, and Student Body President Connor Clegg threatened to defund the paper.
According to FIRE’s website, after sending a letter to the Texas State President Trauth to protest the actions taken against the paper, the response letter “contained factual inaccuracies and half-hearted deflections” which earned it its place on the list due to “contribution to a chill on expressive rights on campus.”