In recent days, senior United Kingdom government officials and members of the European Parliament havethreatened to ban the social media platform X in response to a proliferation of sexualized images on the platform, including images of minors, created by user prompts supplied to Grok, X’s artificial intelligence application.
The following statement can be attributed to Ari Cohn, FIRE’s lead counsel for tech policy:
Banning a platform used by tens of millions of EU and UK residents to participate in global conversations would be a grave mistake.
X and Grok are tools for communication, much like printing presses and cell phones are tools for communication. If those tools are used to create and share unlawful content, the answer must be to prosecute those individuals responsible, not to shut down a vital communicative hub in its entirety. Free nations that claim to honor the expressive rights of their citizens must recognize that mass censorship is never an acceptable approach to objectionable content or illegal conduct. Just as the United States’ attempt to ban TikTok violated core First Amendment principles, so too would an international ban of a social media platform violate basic tenets of freedom of expression.
As we navigate the challenges of technological advances like artificial intelligence, we must reject censorship and top-down governmental control. In our interconnected world, censorship abroad affects all of us, wherever we call home.
Last January, Alana Lewis felt an all-too-familiar dread as the Santa Ana winds tore through the tents above the playground at her home-based day care.
Little did she know, those winds weren’t just a harbinger of fire—they marked the beginning of a crisis that would leave lasting scars on her Altadena community.
She watched in disbelief as the Eaton Fire raged through California’s San Gabriel Mountains, creeping close to the outdoor slide and toys in her yard, which she would later find melted into the artificial grass.
As fire sirens blared and acrid smoke filled her home, Lewis evacuated, helplessly watching nearby homes and child-care sites like hers go up in flames.
“I hate that it happened, but I thank God that it wasn’t in the daytime,” said Lewis, founder of Auntie Lana’s Daycare. “I thank God that when the fire did hit, it was at night when the children were already home safe.”
Today, on the one-year anniversary of the blaze, it’s clear the fire wasn’t just an environmental disaster; it upended the everyday rhythms of life for Lewis and many other child-care providers across Los Angeles.
Nearly 60 percent of licensed child-care sites in Altadena were damaged or destroyed, according to data from the Pasadena Community Foundation.
“Everything outside was completely destroyed, demolished and unrecognizable,” said Lewis, adding that the condition inside her home was no better. “The soot from the fire was so thick that when you walked on the carpet, it would get underneath and inside your tennis shoes.”
Lewis spent months living in hotels and with family as she repaired her home, discarding furniture and salvaging what little remained from a shed that once housed art materials, bikes, toys and other equipment for her day-care charges.
Although initial emergency subsidies helped Lewis and other child-care providers for 30 days after the fire, she says she felt abandoned and neglected as she continued to face mounting out-of-pocket costs.
Relief came when Lewis received a $45,000 grant from Pacific Oaks College, allowing her to reopen her day care in early July.
The Pasadena-based college, in partnership with the Pasadena Community Foundation and Save the Children, distributed about $2 million to 43 child-care sites affected by the Eaton Fire. Grants ranged from $900 to $45,000, helping providers like Lewis rebuild and continue serving families.
“It helped a lot of providers who were stressed out,” Lewis said, noting that the loss of income prevented many from paying rent and that some were denied small business loans.
Breeda McGrath, president of Pacific Oaks College, said she recognized early on that child-care providers were suffering and mobilized to find donors.
McGrath said the decision to support them came naturally, given the college’s roots as a preschool in the 1940s and its evolution by the late 1950s into a four-year institution known for its work in early childhood education and teacher training.
“The identity of Pacific Oaks College over the years … has been focused on social justice, equity and diversity,” McGrath said. “So if we are not at the table to help rebuild and sustain early childhood education in our area, then we’re forgetting who we are.”
She sent a formal proposal to the Pasadena Community Foundation requesting $1.3 million to help child-care providers rebuild or secure new leases, pay staff, replace lost materials, and provide tuition support for families.
Within two days, the philanthropic organization that funds nonprofits and community initiatives in the greater Pasadena area agreed to support the effort.
McGrath later secured an additional $800,000 from Save the Children, a nonprofit that provides health, education and emergency aid to support children’s rights and well-being.
“This is our responsibility as a true community leader,” she said. “If we believe in teacher preparation, if we believe in supporting children, this is part of what you do.”
Pacific Oaks Steps In: In the immediate aftermath of the fire, Pacific Oaks College served as a hub for local child-care providers seeking air purifiers, diapers and other essentials.
McGrath said this was critical because, although the Pasadena Convention Center operated as the main coordination and distribution site, it proved difficult for some child-care providers to access the specific supplies they needed.
Breeda McGrath (first photo, left) joins Pacific Oaks College staff and student workers in helping child-care providers stock up on critical items.
She said Pacific Oaks College not only served as a hub, but also provided the “human power” of its staff and students—many of whom are training to become early childhood educators themselves.
McGrath said higher education institutions play a unique role in disaster recovery, particularly in supporting and preparing the next generation of educators.
“I believe in the long-term investment that higher education makes in a community,” McGrath said, noting that many child-care providers in the area studied at Pacific Oaks College.
“So educating early childhood providers about the best ways to build strong community relationships, run their businesses, care for children and access opportunities for continued learning—that’s where we can contribute our knowledge,” she said.
One year later, McGrath said long-term recovery is top of mind as the community works to rebuild its child-care system and support students training to become early childhood educators.
“If you look at the destruction, the rebuilding process takes a lot of time, effort and energy,” McGrath said. “Not just in terms of the insurance process, but also how long it takes to decide what it means to return—or what it means not to return.”
Auntie Lana’s Daycare: For more than 13 years, Lewis has run her Altadena-based day care for children from infancy through age 12, many of whom are enrolled in Pasadena Unified elementary schools.
The district serves about 15,000 students, the majority Black and Latino, with more than 70 percent socioeconomically disadvantaged. During the Eaton Fire, five schools were destroyed or severely damaged, including Eliot Arts Magnet, Edison Elementary, Loma Alta Elementary, Noyes Elementary and Franklin Elementary.
Lewis on a field trip with children from her Altadena-based day care.
Lewis said most of the children she cares for are Black and Latino, come from low-income families, and were directly affected by the fire, including three who lost their homes.
She added that some of the children had attended elementary schools destroyed by the fire and were displaced to other schools in Pasadena. That grief only deepened when they returned to their beloved day care and saw what had been lost.
“When the kids came back and saw that the things they played with were gone, you could see the look in their eyes—the disbelief,” Lewis said. “This will be with them forever.”
Some of Lewis’s charges work on a group project in her indoor play area.
McGrath said Altadena’s diverse history makes the loss of child-care providers especially profound.
“Over the years, families in Altadena have built strength and, across generations, a deep history in the community,” McGrath said. “A history of moving toward justice—a history of being a community that recognizes everyone’s desire to succeed and everyone’s right to earn a living wage.”
She said child-care providers are deeply woven into that history, often serving multiple generations of the same families and anchoring stability for working parents. That stability, McGrath added, is critical for college students—particularly student parents, who rely on child care to stay enrolled.
“To lose your day-care provider when you’re in those very vulnerable, sensitive stages of life is really destabilizing,” McGrath said. “That was a powerful loss—not just to families, but to long-held homes and to generational wealth that was deeply affected and destroyed.”
Lewis agreed, adding that child-care providers are often overlooked in conversations about disaster recovery and economic stability.
“As child-care providers, the role we play in the economy is extremely important,” Lewis said. “We help people go to work. We help mothers and fathers who are still in school. We have parents and grandparents who need their children cared for in a safe, quality learning environment.”
Lewis said her experience after the fire underscored just how essential—and vulnerable—the child-care sector is during times of crisis.
“We’re providing care to children who will run our economy someday,” Lewis said. “If we can come to the table and find a better solution, that would be awesome.”
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Last year, FIRE launched the Free Speech Dispatch, a regular series covering new and continuing censorship trends and challenges around the world. Our goal is to help readers better understand the global context of free expression. Want to make sure you don’t miss an update? Sign up for our newsletter.
For challenging the CCP, Jimmy Lai may spend the rest of his life behind bars
The result press freedom and human rights advocates feared has arrived: 78-year-old media tycoon, Chinese Communist Party critic, and Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai was found guilty in Hong Kong this week. After five years in detention, much of it in solitary confinement, a West Kowloon Magistrates’ Court found him guilty of sedition and collusion with foreign forces on Monday morning.
He will be sentenced at a later date. Lai, who has suffered deteriorating health amidst his detainment, may very well die in prison.
Authorities launch censorship campaign after Hong Kong’s tragic Wang Fuk Court fire
It’s a page straight out of the authoritarian playbook: Censorship after a crisis to protect the interests of the state from the fallout. Unfortunately, authorities in Hong Kong are not straying away from this strategy. In the aftermath of a deadly residential fire that took at least 159 lives, some of those who have spoken out about the tragedy are now themselves at risk. Hong Kong officials warned they would punish those who “exploit” the tragedy and threatened foreign media against “spreading false information, distorting and smearing the government’s disaster relief and aftermath work” or “provoking social division and opposition.”
Miles Kwan, a university student, started a petition calling for “four big demands” including more regulation, investigation, and assistance to displaced residents after the fire. His position caught the attention of authorities, but not in the way he’d hoped — Kwan was quickly arrested on sedition charges. Other arrests followed, including of a solicitor who intended to speak at a pre-emptively canceled press conference about the fire and a former district councillor. Hong Kong Baptist University suspended the campus student union and “blocked from sight by tall barriers” a union notice board featuring messages about the fire. Separately, authorities also charged a man with sedition for encouraging others on social media not to vote in the latest “patriots only” election.
Proposed Trump admin policy could make self-censorship a condition of entry for tourists
Last week, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced its intention to impose a new policy on tourists from dozens of countries that do not require visas for short visits to the country. Under the proposal, tourists will have to provide five years of social media history in their Electronic System for Travel Authorizations applications, just so they can visit Yellowstone or Disney. Tourists will no doubt worry that their travel plans could be disrupted over years-old tweets and social media commentary.
“Requiring temporary visitors here for a vacation or business to surrender five years of their social media to the U.S. will send the message that the American commitment to free speech is pretense, not practice. This is not the behavior of a country confident in its freedoms,” FIRE warned in response. Keep an eye out for a forthcoming formal comment from FIRE on the matter.
China’s censorship targets underground pastors — and the global internet
After dozens of arrests, 18 leaders of the underground Zion Church were charged with “illegally using information networks,” which can result in up to three years in prison. The church is not sanctioned by the government.
Meanwhile, Chinese tech conglomerate Tencent is reportedly abusing trademark claims to pressure U.S. based cloud hosting service Vultr to halt operations of FreeWeChat, a censorship watchdog tool run by GreatFire.org. FreeWeChat monitors censorship on WeChat, Tencent’s immensely popular social app. After months of back and forth over Tencent’s allegations, Vultr issued “a formal 30-day notification of termination of services.” FreeWeChat has moved to another hosting provider, but expects the new one to face similar threats.
Prosecutors seek to reverse important UK free speech victory
In October’s Free Speech Dispatch, I celebrated the overturning of Hamit Coskun’s conviction for burning a Quran outside the Turkish consulate in London. But that victory, a rare one in the UK these days, may be short-lived.
Late last month, the Crown Prosecution Service appealed the Southwark Crown Court’s ruling in favor of Coskun, where Justice Joel Nathan Bennathan said that free expression “must include the right to express views that offend, shock or disturb.” The CPS asserts that Quran burning itself is not a criminal act but Coskun “demonstrated hostility towards a religious or racial group, which is a crime.”
In Quran burning conviction, UK judge uses violence against defendant as evidence of his guilt
UK judge cites violence against Quran-burning protester as proof of his guilt, Brazil sentences comedian to over eight years for telling jokes, and France targets porn.
“Our case remains that Hamit Coskun’s words, choice of location and burning of the (Quran) amounted to disorderly behaviour,” CPS said in a statement. “We have appealed the decision, and the judge has agreed to state a case for the High Court to consider.” The CPS may be claiming this doesn’t amount to a restriction on blasphemous expression, but the UK’s National Secular Society rightly worries that “CPS seems determined to establish a blasphemy law by the back door.”
Meanwhile, former Premier League player Joey Barton was found guilty of 6 out of 12 counts of sending grossly offensive electronic communications with intent to cause distress or anxiety, earning a suspended prison sentence over a series of social media posts. In them, Barton attacked commentators Eni Aluko and Lucy Ward, calling them “the Fred and Rose West of football commentary,” a comparison to a notorious serial killer couple, and photoshopped their faces onto the Wests in a photo.. In another post he said Aluko was “only there to tick boxes” and because of DEI and affirmative action. Barton also called another broadcaster a “bike nonce” and implied he had been on Jeffrey Epstein’s island.
Trump minimizes Jamal Khashoggi murder, transnational prosecutions, and other press freedom news
Last month, President Trump welcomed Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to the Oval Office — and berated an ABC journalist in the room who asked about MBS’s role in the gruesome murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. “You don’t have to embarrass our guest by asking a question like that,” Trump said to the journalist, and called Khashoggi “extremely controversial.” Trump also said of Khashoggi, “Whether you like him or didn’t like him, things happen, but he [gesturing toward Mohammed] knew nothing about it and we can leave it at that.” U.S. intelligence previously confirmed MBS’s involvement in ordering the killing.
After Trump’s repeated threats to sue the BBC in U.S. courts for its edits to his Jan. 6, 2021 speech, FCC Chair Brendan Carr announced an investigation targeting the BBC. In a letter to NPR and PBS, which sometimes broadcast BBC material, Carr said he sought “to determine whether any FCC regulations have been implicated by the BBC’s misleading and deceptive conduct.” And this week, Trump did indeed file his suit against the BBC in Florida, seeking $10 billion in damages — yet another frivolous lawsuit filed by the president.
Carr’s threats to ABC are jawboning any way you slice it
ABC suspended Jimmy Kimmel hours after FCC Chair Brendan Carr suggested they could face consequences for remarks Kimmel made in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s murder.
Vietnamese police are targeting a journalist over his reporting — and he doesn’t even live in Vietnam. Authorities have issued an order to prosecute and arrest Berlin-based Le Trung Khoa for “making, storing, spreading information, materials, items for the purpose of opposing the state.”
Malaysian authorities are also pursuing a transnational prosecution, with the assistance of Thai courts. Australian academic and Thai resident Murray Hunter will go on trial this month in Thailand on criminal defamation charges over Substack posts about Malaysia’s internet regulator. He could face a fine or up to two years imprisonment.
American right-wing journalist Andy Ngo is suing the UK’s Guardian News and Media for libel over its description of Ngo as an “‘alt-right’ agitator” in a Mumford and Sons album review.
Bianet editor Tuğçe Yılmaz is facing charges of “insulting the Turkish nation, the state of the Republic of Turkey, and its institutions and organs” for her reporting on Armenian youth today and their relationship to the Armenian genocide.
Turkish police arrested a man, and the YouTuber who interviewed and broadcast him, over a poem the man read that prosecutors claim insulted President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and “incit[ed] hatred among the public.”
British musical duo Bob Vylan are suing Irish public broadcaster RTÉ for defamation, alleging that RTÉ defamed the duo in a report calling the band’s “death, death to the IDF” chant at this summer’s Glastonbury music festival “anti-Semitic.”
American writer in Germany receives another visit from police
Berlin-based American writer CJ Hopkins, whose prosecution FIRE covered last year, is in trouble with authorities again. Hopkins says Berlin police arrived at his home on the morning of Nov. 26 and proceeded to interrogate him and his wife and seize his computer. He is apparently facing new charges over the “publication and distribution” of his book The Rise of the New Normal Reich: Consent Factory Essays, Vol. III (2020-2021). The cover art of the book, which showed a swastika and medical mask, was the root of Hopkins’ previous legal trouble. He had posted the image to social media to compare European COVID policies to Nazism and was charged with “disseminating propaganda.”
So to Speak Podcast Transcript: CJ Hopkins compared modern Germany to Nazi Germany. Now he’s standing trial.
J Hopkins is an American playwright, novelist, and political satirist. He moved to Germany in 2004.
Tech censorship news from Australia, India, Russia, and more
Reddit is challenging Australia’s age restrictions on social media, citing the country’s free expression protections, and the application of that ban to the message forum. Australia’s government is digging in, though. Health Minister Mark Butler, who promised to “fight this action every step of the way,” said, “It is action we saw time and time again by Big Tobacco against tobacco control and we are seeing it now by some social media or big tech giants.”
The under-16 social media bans are spreading. Following Australia’s lead, the Malaysian government is planning for a system of age verification to limit social media access to people 16 and older. Denmark and Norway are pursuing similar plans.
Due to privacy and security concerns, Apple said it would not comply with an order from the Indian government to require its phones to automatically come with Sanchar Saathi, a cybersecurity app the government says addresses phone theft. The pushback was successful — the government shortly after announced it was rolling back its mandate to phone manufacturers.
Claiming to combat “content that can negatively impact the spiritual and moral development of children,” particularly LGBT content, Russian media regulator Roskomnadzor cut off access to the popular online game platform Roblox.
Italian YouTube channel Parabellum, which has covered Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, also says it’s received warnings from Roskomnadzor, particularly over its map of operations within Ukraine. Parabellum analyst Mirko Campochiari shared that he received an order from a Russian court to “remove information prohibited in the Russian Federation, to block traffic from Russia to the map, and to notify the Russian authority of the censorship carried out.”
Award-winning director Jafar Panahi sentenced in absentia
Iranian director Jafar Panahi was sentenced in absentia to a year in prison by a Tehran court for “propaganda activities against the system.” Panahi is also subject to a two year travel ban. Panahi filmed It Was Just an Accident, which recently received the Palme d’Or at Cannes, “clandestinely in Iran following a seven-month stint in prison.”
PHILADELPHIA, Dec. 16, 2025— The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression reports a record number of campus incidents involving attempts to investigate, censor, or otherwise punish students for protected expression in 2025.
FIRE has documented 273 efforts — so far — this year in which students and student groups were targeted for their constitutionally protected expression. This breaks the previous record of 252 set back in 2020, the first year of the Students Under Fire database, during the unrest prompted by Covid-19 lockdowns and the murder of George Floyd.
“These findings paint a campus culture in which student expression is increasingly policed and controversial ideas are not tolerated,” said FIRE Senior Researcher Logan Dougherty. “College is supposed to be a place where ideas are freely shared, not where students should be concerned about whether their comments will be subject to university scrutiny.”
Some especially grievous incidents include the arrest of Columbia University pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil; Indiana University’s censorship of its student newspaper (and firing of the director of student media) over an editorial dispute; the University of Alabama’s decision to shutter two student outlets because they supposedly ran afoul of U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi’s guidance about D.E.I. programs; and, for good measure, a student at Weber State University in Utah who was directed to censor a presentation — about censorship.
FIRE’s Students Under Fire tracking relies on publicly available information to document various details about these controversies, including but not limited to the source calling for punishment, the speech topic of controversy, and the political direction of the attempt in relation to the targeted speech. Consistent with other FIRE research, the Students Under Fire database observed an uptick in attempts by the political right to silence speech in 2025.
The database is unprecedented both in type and scale, offering the most detailed collection of campus controversies involving students’ protected speech to date.
FIRE also noticed another troubling trend in 2025: A surge in attempts by government officials to influence how universities respond to student speech — especially following the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Some recent examples include:
In all these cases, students were targeted or punished not because their speech was unlawful — but because it caused controversy.
“Aside from the harm on the individual students involved in these incidents, such actions could have the effect of chilling speech across an entire campus — and across an entire generation,” Dougherty said. “What kind of lesson is that? That the safest move in college is to keep your head down and your mouth shut?”
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to defending and sustaining the individual rights of all Americans to free speech and free thought — the most essential qualities of liberty. FIRE educates Americans about the importance of these inalienable rights, promotes a culture of respect for these rights, and provides the means to preserve them.
Karl de Vries, Director of Media Relations, FIRE: 215-717-3473; [email protected]
On Tuesday, the Trump administration announced that it would require foreign tourists to the United States to provide five years of social media history to enter the country. Americans have 60 days to comment on the proposal. FIRE plans to publish a formal comment outlining why this is a serious threat to free expression.
The following can be attributed to Sarah McLaughlin, FIRE’s senior scholar for global expression:
Those who hope to experience the wonders of the United States — from Yellowstone to Disneyland to Independence Hall — should not have to fear that self-censorship is a condition of entry. Requiring temporary visitors here for a vacation or business to surrender five years of their social media to the U.S. will send the message that the American commitment to free speech is pretense, not practice. This is not the behavior of a country confident in its freedoms.
Americans should not feel that they must silence themselves at home for fear that their online expression will bar their access to travel overseas. Therefore we shouldn’t put tourists coming here in that bind. Call it the golden rule of free expression: Treat the speech of visitors the way we want to see Americans’ expression treated abroad.
Changes at the Pentagon, Charlie Kirk and cancel
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Nine out of ten undergrads believe that “words can be violence”
Differences in views becoming more stark between liberal and conservative students
PHILADELPHIA, Dec. 2, 2025 — Ninety one percent of undergraduate students believe that words can be violence, according to a new poll by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression and College Pulse.
The survey’s findings are especially startling coming in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination — an extreme and tragic example of the sharp difference between words and violence.
“When people start thinking that words can be violence, violence becomes an acceptable response to words,” said FIRE Chief Research Advisor Sean Stevens. “Even after the murder of Charlie Kirk at a speaking event, college students think that someone’s words can be a threat. This is antithetical to a free and open society, where words are the best alternative to political violence.”
The new 21-question poll, conducted between Oct. 3-31 by FIRE and College Pulse, assessed free speech on campus in the wake of Kirk’s assassination at Utah Valley University on Sept. 10 and asked undergraduates about their comfort level with a number of controversial topics. The survey of 2,028 undergrads included an oversample of 204 students at Utah Valley, and has a margin of error of +/- 2%.
Half of students surveyed say that because of what happened to Kirk, they are now less comfortable attending or hosting controversial public events on their campus, and one in five say they are less comfortable attending class.
Other findings show stark differences between students at Utah Valley and other schools, as well as widening rifts between liberal and conservative students:
When asked whether the country is headed in the right or wrong direction for people’s ability to freely express their views, 84% of Utah Valley students said “wrong direction,” significantly higher than the 73% reported by students at other schools.
Moderate and conservative students across the country became significantly less likely to say that shouting down a speaker, blocking entry to an event, or using violence to stop a campus speech are acceptable actions. In contrast, liberal students’ support for these tactics held steady, or even increased slightly.
Among moderate and conservative students, opposition to controversial speakers generally declined. Opposition among liberal students, on the other hand, either held steady or increased for all of the controversial speakers compared to the spring.
The gaps between conservative and liberal students may be widening, but some concerns transcend politics. A majority of students of all persuasions (53%) say that political violence is a problem among all groups, considerably more than the 35% of Americans who recently said this in FIRE’s October National Speech Index.
“Students want to feel safe, and the killing of Charlie Kirk naturally eroded their sense of safety,” said Stevens. “What we want students to recognize is that the safest environment is one in which people can speak their minds without fear of censorship or violence.”
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to defending and sustaining the individual rights of all Americans to free speech and free thought — the most essential qualities of liberty. FIRE educates Americans about the importance of these inalienable rights, promotes a culture of respect for these rights, and provides the means to preserve them.
Critics of the policy – now subject to consultation – say the levy will only heap more pressure onto an already creaking higher education network. At present, only England’s universities will be subject to the charge, as the Office for Students, which will manage the charge, only regulates English institutions.
Official modelling predicts that the change, set to come in from August 2025, will cost universities an annual £330 million. However, under the proposals, each provider will receive an annual allowance to cover their first 220 international students – a move that’s made smaller and specialist institutions breathe a sigh of relief.
But for larger universities with high numbers of international students, the picture isn’t so rosy.
Gary Davies, pro vice-chancellor of London Metropolitan University, told The PIE News the levy would have a detrimental effect on his institution despite being brought in as a flat fee.
“For us the levy means a cut in funding for the very students the levy proposes to support. It will impact what we can offer in relation to student hardship, careers advice, scholarships for underrepresented students,” he said.
Diana Beech, director of the Finsbury Institute at City St George’s, said the details of the policy had been “buried in the Treasury’s Red Book” – largely dodging coverage by the mainstream media.
“This begs the question: why undermine one of the UK’s strongest export sectors without even gaining political credit for it – whether that’s by framing the levy as a tough stance on immigration or as a much-needed boost for disadvantaged students,” she asked.
“By going about this policy in such a hush-hush way, the levy will simply tax legitimate, highly skilled migration under the radar and heap further pressure on universities already in financial distress. Worse still, fixing it as a flat £925 fee per student risks hitting those institutions least able to absorb the cost, given the lack of price elasticity outside the elite end of the sector.”
Why undermine one of the UK’s strongest export sectors without even gaining political credit for it? Diana Beech, City St George’s
University Alliance CEO Vanessa Wilson warned the levyrisked “denting [the] success story” of UK international education – even if the cash raised would go towards a goo cause like domestic maintenance grants.”
Wilson said the move would hit universities hard, and pressed for a full assessment of the levy’s effects on higher education institutions before its proposed implementation in 2028.
“Alongside this, the government must explore further ways to soften the blow for professional and technical universities, such as cutting costly regulation and reviewing their participation in the Teachers’ Pension Scheme, which some universities are legally obliged to offer at increasingly expensive contribution rates,” she added.
Malcolm Press, president of Universities UK, pointed out that the UK’s international fees are already high. As a result of the proposed levy, he predicted, English universities would either have to reduce cross-subsidies that support teaching and research, or raise international fees further – which could drive down international student numbers and therefore force institutions to reduce domestic places.
The irony of the levy – which will be used to fund maintenance grants for disadvantaged British students – actually reducing places for home students has been raised before. An analysis by the think tank Public First predicted the levy could shrink domestic places by 135,000.
On Nov. 24, the Pentagon announced it would initiate a review of Sen. Mark Kelly, a retired Navy captain. The announcement comes six days after Kelly and other elected officials released a video calling on U.S. troops to refuse illegal orders. The group did not identify any specific illegal orders. Notably, service members already take an oath to uphold the Constitution.
The Pentagon’s decision follows a Truth Social post from President Trump, saying that the video was “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH.” He later walked back the post, saying, “I would say they’re in serious trouble. I’m not threatening death, but I think they’re in serious trouble. In the old days, it was death. That was seditious behavior.”
The following statement can be attributed to Greg Lukianoff, president and CEO of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression:
The Pentagon’s actions are clear retaliation for something Sen. Kelly is entirely within his rights to say. America’s servicemembers already take an oath to uphold the Constitution, which includes not following illegal orders. The argument that the video’s message is sedition, or otherwise unprotected by the First Amendment, is flatly wrong.
