Late last month, the student chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine at George Mason University posted a video on a social media account that criticized U.S. foreign policy and Israel. The video (now removed), which apparently stylistically mimicked a Hamas video, included phrases such as “genocidal Zionist State,” “the belly of the beast,” and “from the river to the sea.” It also specifically addressed conditions in Gaza and GMU’s alleged oppression of pro-Palestinian protestors.
Regardless of one’s views on Israel and Gaza, all of this is protected speech. But rather than protecting student political discourse, GMU demanded the SJP chapter take down the video explicitly because its language ran afoul of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s vague definition of antisemitism, which has been incorporated into GMU’s anti-discrimination policy. The school warned that failure to comply could result in disciplinary action.
Student groups at public universities have the First Amendment right to post videos expressing their views on international conflicts, even if some members of the campus community are offended by the viewpoints expressed. We’ve seen no evidence the video constituted incitement, true threats, intimidation, or student-on-student harassment — narrow categories of speech unprotected by the First Amendment.
When campus administrators invoke the IHRA definition and its examples to investigate, discipline, or silence political expression, the distinction between conduct and speech becomes meaningless.
This is not the first — nor will it be the last — instance of universities relying on vague, overbroad anti-harassment definitions to censor speech some members of the campus community find offensive. In fact, overbroad anti-harassment policies remain the most common form of speech codes on college campuses. But it does point to the clear and growing threat the use of the IHRA definition poses to campus discourse about the Israel-Palestine conflict. It’s a danger about which FIRE has warned of since 2016, a danger we’ve seen in application, and one that the IHRA definition’s supporters routinely brush aside. As more and more states adopt IHRA for the purpose of enforcing anti-discrimination law, we’re likely to see increasingly more instances of campus censorship in the future.
IHRA defines antisemitism as:
a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.
The document also provides a list of examples of antisemitism that include, among others:
Applying double standards by requiring of [Israel] a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.
Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.
Language that does this (and that does not also fall into a specific category of unprotected speech) may offend some or many people. It nevertheless constitutes core political speech. Supporters of the use of the IHRA definition on campus insist that the definition does not restrict free speech, but rather helps identify antisemitic intent or motive when determining whether a student has created a hostile environment in violation of anti-discrimination laws. But this attempted distinction collapses in practice.
When “intent” is inferred from political expression — as it has at GMU and other campuses across the country — speech itself becomes evidence of a violation. Under this framework, students and faculty learn that certain viewpoints about Israel are per se suspect, and both institutional censorship and self-censorship follow. Despite its defenders’ claims, when campus administrators invoke the IHRA definition and its examples to investigate, discipline, or silence political expression, the distinction between conduct and speech becomes meaningless.
Analysis: Harvard’s settlement adopting IHRA anti-Semitism definition a prescription to chill campus speech
Harvard agreed to settle two lawsuits brought against it by Jewish students that alleged the university ignored “severe and pervasive antisemitism on campus.”
The problem is compounded by the Trump administration’s Title VI enforcement. Its unlawful defund-first, negotiate-second approach places universities’ federal funding — sometimes hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars — at the mercy of the administration’s Joint Antisemitism Task Force. That threat alone is enough to force campus administrators to make a choice: censor student speech critical of Israel, or risk losing access to federal funding. All too often, as we have seen repeatedly, institutions choose access to money over standing up for student rights.
Instead of relying on IHRA’s vague definition for anti-discrimination purposes, FIRE has long supported efforts to constitutionally and effectively address antisemitic discrimination on college campuses by passing legislation to:
Prohibit harassment based on religion.
Confirm that Title VI prohibits discrimination based on ethnic stereotypes.
Codify the Supreme Court’s definition of discriminatory harassment.
These options would better address antisemitic harassment and would do so without suppressing free speech.
October 27, 2025, By Dean Hoke—As many of you know, I am deeply committed to helping small and mid-sized colleges find sustainable paths forward. That’s why I’m proud to announce the launch of the Edu Alliance Group Center for College Partnerships and Alliances, dedicated to helping institutions explore partnerships, mergers, and strategic alliances that strengthen their mission and impact.
The Center will be led by newly appointed partners Dr. Chet Haskell and Dr. Barry Ryan, two distinguished higher education leaders with deep experience in governance, accreditation, and institutional transformation. Together, they bring a wealth of expertise in guiding colleges and universities through complex transitions while preserving mission integrity and academic excellence.
The Center’s framework draws on insights presented in “A Guide to College Partnerships, Mergers, and Strategic Alliances for Boards and Leadership:From Awareness to Implementation,” authored by Dr. Chet Haskell, Dr. Barry Ryan, and Edu Alliance Managing Partner Dean Hoke. The guide outlines a five-stage model: Recognize, Assess, Explore, Negotiate, and Implement. It emphasizes mission integrity, transparency, and trust as the foundation for success.
“Our goal is to help college leaders and boards move from awareness to action with clarity, confidence, and compassion,” said Dr. Haskell. “Partnerships and alliances can preserve institutional identity while creating new opportunities for students and communities.”
“Edu Alliance has long supported institutions navigating change,” added Dean Hoke, Co-Founder and Managing Partner. “With the launch of the Center, we’re expanding our ability to help presidents and boards design solutions that are both visionary and pragmatic.”
About the Leadership
Dr. Chester (Chet) Haskell recently completed six and a half years as Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and University Provost at Antioch University, where he played key roles in integrating the institution academically and structurally, as well as in creating the Coalition for the Common Good with Otterbein University, where he was Vice President for Graduate Programs. He previously held senior positions at Harvard University—including Associate Dean of the Kennedy School of Government—and later served as Dean of the College at Simmons College (Boston). Dr. Haskell went on to serve as President of both the Monterey Institute of International Studies (now part of Middlebury College) and Cogswell Polytechnical College, leading both institutions through successful mergers. He holds DPA and MPA degrees from the University of Southern California, an MA from the University of Virginia, and an AB cum laude from Harvard University.
Dr. Barry Ryan has served as President of five universities and as Provost and Chief of Staff at three others, spanning state, private nonprofit, and private for-profit institutions. A Supreme Court Fellow in the chambers of Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, Dr. Ryan is a member of several federal and state bars and has held two terms as Commissioner for WASC (WSCUC). He has led institutions through mergers, acquisitions, and affiliations that preserved academic quality, expanded access, and strengthened long-term viability. His leadership is characterized by transparency, shared governance, and a deep commitment to stakeholder engagement. Dr. Ryan earned his Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Barbara, his J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Dipl.GB in international business from the University of Oxford.
The University of Greenwich and the University of Kent have this morning announced the intention to form a multi-university group.
The aim is for the London and South East University Group – as it’s provisionally to be known, though this will be subject to consultation – to be established in time for the 2026–27 academic year.
The plan on the student-facing side is for each university’s identity to be preserved – with applications, and degree awards, kept separate – behind the scenes, the “super-university” (as the press release puts it) will have a unified governing body, academic board, and executive team, and a single vice chancellor: Greenwich’s Jane Harrington. Staff at both universities are expected to transfer across to the newly merged university – legally, there will be one entity, but the two “brands” will still exist as trading arms.
Merger by numbers
Going by 2023–24 student numbers, the new “super-university” would have 46,885 registered students (29,695 at Greenwich, 17,190 at Kent), around the same size as the University of Manchester. It would employ 2,550 academic staff (currently 1,245 at Greenwich, 1,305 at Kent), roughly equivalent in size to Manchester Metropolitan University.
It would offer, based on the current UCAS database, an astonishing 442 full time undergraduate courses (281 at Greenwich, 171 at Kent) – 70 more than the University of Manchester. A glance across portfolios sees some interesting congruences. Kent has a medical school, Greenwich has a nursing school and a teacher training offer. Both are strong in law, computer science, business, engineering, and psychology. Greenwich has more of an offer in the arts and tourism, Kent in the hard sciences.
The University of Kent has an established reputation for research in social policy and social work, and in law – although the largest single concentration of research active staff is in business and management studies. Greenwich also has a research concentration in business, but overall it has a less strong research portfolio.
Financially speaking, we’re talking about a “super-university” with nearly £598m of income (Greenwich £329m, Kent £268m): that’s a little less than Newcastle University. Expenditure of £569m (Greenwich £302m, Kent £266m) is in the University of Warwick ballpark.
While there have been a number of recent higher education mergers – ARU with Writtle, and City St George’s, in particular – the size and scale, along with the much-anticipated deployment of a multi-university model for the first time, mark this news as something of a watershed moment for the English sector.
Universities UK’s efficiency and transformation taskforce has been for some time highlighting the sector’s interest in something comparable to multi-academy trust structures in schools – while also noting the “relatively limited experience” that the sector possesses in navigating such arrangements. This is about to change – the two universities’ description of the intended union as “a blueprint for other institutions to follow” is likely prescient.
Two become one
We might also note here that such a model is by no means limited to only two universities operating under one umbrella. The conversations behind the scenes over the last couple of years have been for groups spanning multiple universities and it’s not hard to see how others in the region might want to – or somehow be compelled to – join this group once it’s up and running. Starting with two, however, is a logical choice given the scale and complexity of that exercise alone. The government will be watching closely and hoping it works, so that they can propose the model elsewhere, particularly if it staves off the risk of institutional failure. Local politicians will also be watching closely as a potentially massive new institution emerges, which could have far-reaching local consequences for better and worse.
One of the eye-catching aspects of today’s announcement is that of leadership – it has already been settled that there is to be one vice chancellor, one board and one senior team. Most mergers and collaborations in HE in recent times have failed before they have even started because of disagreement about which person should sit in the big chair. Being able to embrace this merger process free of that thorny question gives the exercise a much greater chance of success from the outset.
Of course, collaboration between the University of Greenwich and the University of Kent is not new. Since 2004 the two universities have jointly run the Medway School of Pharmacy in Chatham Dockyard, a joint endeavour that has grown into a multi-disciplinary campus shared between the Greenwich, Kent, and Canterbury Christ Church University. These two decades of practical experience will be an invaluable resource to draw on as these plans move closer to implementation.
Just the beginning?
Aside from the potential for other institutions to join the group, the announcement is clearly the start of a long-term process. Despite staff and students coming together into the newly merged university, student pathways and decision-making processes will inevitably be tied to the old institutions and subject areas – and this is difficult to change midstream. If the merger is successful, then these identities could eventually end up disappearing or at least moving to the background, as natural opportunities for integration and efficiencies are sought to be realised by the board and leadership team.
Such talk will no doubt be unsettling for staff at both Kent and Greenwich, who will wonder for how long their jobs will be needed, particularly where they have a like-for-like counterpart on the other side. The consultations about their futures will need to be thorough and sensitive.
And enormous questions of REF submissions, TEF awards, data, DAPs and more will now also need to be worked through.
For now we watch as a new institution takes shape.
Gores is the self-proclaimed leader of an online group called Purgatory, which is linked to a violent online extremist network called The Com, according to Wired. Alongside another Purgatory member called tor, Gores began placing fake calls to campus and local emergency services about active shooters about noon Aug. 21, the same day the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and Villanova University received swatting calls.
As of Wednesday afternoon, Inside Higher Ed counted 19 confirmed swatting calls since Aug. 19, including at Mercer University, the University of Wisconsin at Madison, the University of Utah and the University of New Hampshire.
Not all of the calls placed by Purgatory have been successful. In some cases, authorities correctly identified the calls as hoaxes. When the group placed a call to Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pa., a researcher listening in on the call was able to alert the university. The FBI is investigating the uptick in swatting calls and has not publicly confirmed Purgatory’s involvement. Gores told Wired that the swatting spree will continue for another two months.
Purgatory offers to make swatting calls for as little as $20, though the price has increased to $95 since this recent campaign of calls began, according to Wired. Three members of Purgatory were arrested in 2024 and pleaded guilty earlier this year for threats made to a Delaware high school, a trailer park in Alabama, Albany International Airport, an Ohio casino and a private residence in Georgia.
BPP Education Group’s growth plan has been backed by the private equity firm TDR Capital, with a view to expand geographically into various sites around the world.
The group, which provides education and training in various fields of work like Law and Finance, hopes to increase the variety of ITS portfolio of courses through the acquisition of dynamic education businesses like Sprott Shaw College.
Sprott Shaw College (SSC), founded in 1903, is one of the largest regulated career colleges IN Canada and offers students connections with real-word opportunities to ready them for work in positions such as nursing and business.
Prior to the deal, it was a subsidiary of Global Education Communities Corporation (GECC), which is one of the largest education and student housing investment companies in Canada.
The college also places a large focus on cultural awareness and inclusivity – and its courses are designed with these in mind.
According to Graham Gaddes, CEO of BPP, the acquisition marks an “important milestone into BPP’s internationalisation”.
“The acquisition will support SSC’s plans to continue to be agile in meeting the needs of the domestic and international community, with programmes developed with cultural awareness and inclusivity in mind,” he added. “We admire what Sprott Shaw College has achieved to date and look forward to welcoming the team to the BPP Education Group.”
The college has grown substantially in size with integrity and has gained respect from the global education community Toby Chu, GECC
This purchase opens doorways for BPP to offer a vast range of professional education programs due to an alignment with other institutions in its portfolio, such as Ascenda School of Management and Arbutus College.
The programs would range from certificates to degree levels, which would aid both domestic and international students.
Toby Chu, president and CEO of GECC, said that he is “confident that Sprott Shaw College will continue to flourish under BPP’s ownership”.
The college had weathered many difficulties in recent years, he said, including the Covid-19 pandemic and more recent study permit caps in Canada.
“Despite these challenges, the college has grown substantially in size with integrity and has gained respect from the global education community. I am confident that Sprott Shaw College will continue to flourish under BPP’s ownership,” he said.
The Department of Defense now says that “consideration of race and ethnicity in admissions at the MSAs does not promote military cohesiveness, lethality, recruitment, retention, or legitimacy; national security; or any other governmental interest.”
Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images
Students for Fair Admissions, the organization that successfully fought to end race-conscious admissions practices, settled with two military academies that were exempted from the 2023 Supreme Court ruling that ended affirmative action, The New York Times reported.
The Supreme Court ruled two years ago that military academies could continue to practice race-conscious admissions due to “potentially distinct interests” at such institutions. SFFA then sued, arguing such practices should be struck down. But on Monday, SFFA dropped its lawsuits against the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and the United States Air Force Academy.
As part of the agreement, the Department of Defense, which oversees military service academies, will no longer consider race and ethnicity in admissions, according to settlement details, which emphasize recruiting and promoting individuals based on merit alone. That settlement also backed away from the notion that it has an interest in a diverse office corps.
“The Department of Defense has determined, based on the military’s experience and expertise—and after reviewing the relevant evidence—that the consideration of race and ethnicity in admissions at the MSAs does not promote military cohesiveness, lethality, recruitment, retention, or legitimacy; national security; or any other governmental interest,” part of the settlement between SFFA and the Department of Defense reads. “The United States no longer believes that the challenged practices are justified by a ‘compelling national security interest in a diverse officer corps.’”
Additionally, if an applicant lists race or ethnicity on an application, “no one with responsibility over admissions can see, access or consider” that information prior to a decision being made.
School (in)Security is our biweekly briefing on the latest school safety news, vetted by Mark Keierleber. Subscribe here.
As far-right political operative David Barton leads a Christian nationalist crusade, he’s traveled to state capitols across the country this year to support dozens of bills requiring Ten Commandments displays in classrooms.
My latest story digs into a well-coordinated and deep-pocketed campaign to inject Protestant Christianity into public schools that could carry broader implications for students’ First Amendment rights. Through a data analysis of 28 bills that have cropped up across 18 states this year, I show how Barton’s role runs far deeper than just being their primary pitchman.
The analysis reveals how the language, structure and requirements of these bills nationwide are inherently identical. Time and again, state legislation took language verbatim from a Barton-led lobbying blitz to reshape the nation’s laws around claims — routinely debunked — about Christianity’s role in the country’s founding and its early public education system.
Three new state laws in Louisiana, Arkansas and Texas mandating Ten Commandments posters in public schools are designed to challenge a 1980 Supreme Court ruling against such government-required displays in classrooms. GOP state lawmakers embracing these laws have expressed support for eradicating the separation of church and state — a pursuit critics fear will coerce students and take away their own religious freedom.
In the news
Updates to Trump’s immigration crackdown: Immigration and Customs Enforcement has released from custody a 6-year-old boy with leukemia more than a month after he and his family were sent to a rural Texas detention center. | Slate
As the Department of Homeland Security conducts what it calls wellness checks on unaccompanied minors, the young people who migrated to the U.S. without their parents “are just terrified.” | Bloomberg
‘It looks barbaric’: Video footage purportedly shows some two dozen children in federal immigration custody handcuffed and shackled in a Los Angeles parking garage. | Santa Cruz Sentinel
The Department of Homeland Security is investigating surveillance camera footage purportedly showing federal immigration officers urinating on the grounds of a Pico Rivera, California, high school in broad daylight. | CBS News
California sued the Trump administration after it withheld some $121 million in education funds for a program designed to help the children of migrant farmworkers catch up academically. | EdSource
Undocumented children will be banned from enrolling in federally funded Head Start preschools, the Trump administration announced. | The Washington Post
Legal pushback: Parents, Head Start providers challenge new rule barring undocumented families. | The 74
Getty Images
The executive director of Camp Mystic in Texas didn’t begin evacuations for more than an hour after he received a severe flood warning from the National Weather Service. The ensuing tragedy killed 27 counselors and campers. | The Washington Post
The day after the Supreme Court allowed the Education Department’s dismantling, Secretary Linda McMahon went ahead with plans to move key programs. | The 74
Now, with fewer staff, the Office for Civil Rights is pursuing a smaller caseload. During a three-month period between March and June, the agency dismissed 3,424 civil rights complaints. | Politico
Sign-up for the School (in)Security newsletter.
Get the most critical news and information about students’ rights, safety and well-being delivered straight to your inbox.
Massachusetts legislation seeks to ban anyone under the age of 18 from working in the state’s seafood processing facilities after an investigation exposed the factories routinely employed migrant youth in unsafe conditions. | The Public’s Radio
An end to a deadly trend: School shootings decreased 22% during the 2024-25 school year compared to a year earlier after reaching all-time highs for three years in a row. | K-12 Dive
Florida is the first state to require all high school student athletes to undergo electrocardiograms in a bid to detect heart conditions. | WUSF
The Senate dropped rules from Trump’s “big, beautiful” tax-and-spending bill that would have prevented states from regulating artificial intelligence tools, including those used in schools. | The Verge
Food stamps are another matter: The federal SNAP program will be cut by about a fifth over the next decade, taking away at least some nutrition benefits from at least 800,000 low-income children. | The 74
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.
Kneecap spurs controversy in the U.S. and investigation in the UK as narcocorridos controversy roils Mexico
Belfast trio Kneecap’s public statements at Coachella and earlier concerts have caused an international stir, and now even the UK’s counter-terrorism police are involved.
The band, already no stranger to controversy, provoked it once again during its Coachella performances by displaying the message, “Israel is committing genocide … enabled by the US,” adding, “Fuck Israel. Free Palestine.”
In the following days, they were uninvited from music festivals in Germany as well as split with their booking agency in the U.S., meaning that the band is likely to face work-visa issues in its upcoming American tour. (And, given the Trump administration’s current track record on the subject, it would not be surprising to see them face visa challenges on the basis of their expression.)
In addition to the Coachella dustup, the group’s past comments have stirred new threats of legal action in the UK, specifically an “Up Hamas, up Hezbollah” chant at a 2024 gig and a band member’s comment at a show the year prior: “The only good Tory is a dead Tory. Kill your local MP.”
Metropolitan police said videos of both comments “were referred to the Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit for assessment by specialist officers, who have determined there are grounds for further investigation into potential offences linked to both videos.” A UK government spokesperson also said that authorities will “work with the police and parliament to do everything in our power to crack down on threats to elected officials.” (In the U.S., these comments would not meet either the incitement standard or qualify as material support for terrorism, and would be protected by the First Amendment.) And British politicians have made calls including for their disinvitation from Glastonbury as well as prosecution for the “Kill your local MP” remark.
A group of artists including Massive Attack and Pulp issued a statement against what they called a “clear, concerted attempt to censor and ultimately deplatform the band Kneecap.” The band also objected to what it calls a “smear campaign” to “manufacture moral hysteria” but asserted they “do not, and have never, supported Hamas or Hezbollah” and would not “seek to incite violence against any MP or individual. Ever.”
Some similar questions are at play in Mexico over narcocorridos, ballads about drug trafficking. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum says her “position is that it should not be banned, but that other music should be promoted.” In recent weeks, though, some Mexican states have taken action against the genre.
And last month, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau announced on X that the State Department revoked the visas of a band who “portrayed images glorifying drug kingpin ‘El Mencho’” at a concert in Mexico. “I’m a firm believer in freedom of expression,” Landau wrote, “but that doesn’t mean that expression should be free of consequences.”
The band, Los Alegres del Barranco, may also be facing criminal charges in Mexico “for allegedly promoting criminal activity.”
The UK’s blasphemy debate is still going
Kneecap’s political commentary isn’t the only free expression controversy in the UK. As I’ve discussed in previousdispatches, UK-based activists have set off global controversies in recent months with public Quran burnings resulting in criminal charges.
The Crown Prosecution Service received well-deserved criticism over its decision to charge a man who burned a Quran outside the Turkish consulate in London with intent to cause “harassment, alarm or distress” against “the religious institution of Islam.” There is no other way to put it: protecting a religious institution from “distress” is a blatant blasphemy law.
In response to critics, the CPS admitted the charge was “incorrectly applied” and has substituted a different charge, a public order offense “on the basis that his actions caused harassment, alarm or distress — which is a criminal offence — and that this was motivated by hostility towards a religious or racial group.”
This prosecution, however, remains a serious threat to free expression and the public debate around it suggests this matter is far from settled. In an exchange on X, one member of parliament chastised another for “invest[ing] so much energy into advocating for the right to offend a minority community” and warned that free expression “comes with limitations and protections.”
From Xi’s critics to Israeli protests, political speech is under attack
In a recent episode of his HBO show “The Rehearsal,” Nathan Fielder reveals Paramount+ removed an older “Nathan for You” episode from streaming everywhere after Paramount+ Germany became “uncomfortable with what they called anything that touches on antisemitism in the aftermath of the Israel/Hamas attacks.” That episode focused on Fielder’s satirical pitch for a winter coat company to compete with a real life brand affiliated with a Holocaust denier. (From the stunt, Fielder “likely raised millions of dollars toward Holocaust awareness.”)
Israeli police temporarily warned organizers of a Tel Aviv protest that demonstrators could not use images of Palestinian children and terms like “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing” in protest signs.
A new Human Rights Watch report finds that Vietnam is ramping up enforcement of its law targeting expression “infringing of state interests.” Now “authorities have enlarged the scope and application of article 331 so that it reaches much further into society, beyond human rights and democracy dissidents — most of whom are now in prison — to all those publicly voicing grievances.”
A Thai appeals court sentenced a democracy activist to two years in prison for violating the country’s harsh lese-majeste law. In 2022, she posted on Facebook, “The government is shit, the institution is shit.”
Paul Chambers, the American academic charged with lese-majeste in Thailand, received good news but he’s not out of the woods yet. Prosecutors announced they declined to pursue the charges against him but that decision will face further review.
At April’s Semafor World Economy Summit, Netflix Co-CEO Ted Sarandos shared that the company previously attempted to build a presence in China but “in three years, not a single episode of a single Netflix show cleared the censorship board.”
China has disappeared another “Bridge Man.” In an incident similar to one that set off a global protest movement in 2022, an activist hung banners calling for political reform over a bridge outside Chengdu last month and was quickly detained — and his whereabouts are now unknown.
An investigation of China’s transnational repression methods from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists found that during “at least seven of Xi’s 31 international trips between 2019 and 2024, local law enforcement infringed on dozens of protesters’ rights in order to shield the Chinese president from dissent, detaining or arresting activists, often for spurious reasons.”
Last month, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that, at the DOJ’s request, Serbian law enforcement arrested two men alleged to have “coordinated and directed a conspiracy to harass, intimidate, and threaten” a Los Angeles-based critic of Xi Jinping.
Hong Kong’s national security police arrested family members of the U.S.-based activist Anna Kwok, who is wanted under the city’s national security law, for handling her “funds or other financial assets.”
Conflict with Pakistan brings spike in India’s censorship
India’s censorship, especially on the internet, is a persistent threat to free expression, and the country’s recent flare-up with Pakistan has worsened the situation. Dozenshavebeenarrested for “anti-India comments” on social media and “content supporting Pakistan.”
In a May 8 notice, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting advised all social media sites and streaming services to “discontinue” content “having its origins in Pakistan with immediate effect.”
At the government’s request, Meta blocked the 6.7 million follower Instagram account @Muslim, one of “the most followed Muslim news sources on Instagram.” X, too, announced it received orders to block over 8,000 users in the country, including “accounts belonging to international news organizations and prominent X users.” X complied and said “due to legal restrictions, we are unable to publish the executive orders at this time” but is exploring avenues to respond.
YouTube, too, is a target. Officials blocked over a dozen Pakistani YoutTube channels for “disseminating provocative and communally sensitive content, false and misleading narratives and misinformation against India.” India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology also restricted access to The Wire, an independent news site, throughout the country.
The latest wins, losses, and challenges for free speech in tech
It’s not all bad news for free expression in India. This month, India’s Supreme Court reversed a ruling from the Delhi High Court ordering Wikipedia to take down a Wiki page amidst Asian News International’s lawsuit against the Wikimedia Foundation.
The Wikimedia Foundation is also taking on the UK’s Online Safety Act. The foundation is specifically challenging the act’s Categorisation Regulations, which “are written broadly enough that they could place Wikipedia as a ‘Category 1 service’ — a platform posing the highest possible level of risk to the public.” Among Wikimedia’s objections are the risks this classification poses to its users’ privacy and anonymity.
Meta secured a significant victory against Israeli spyware company NSO Group, with a jury awarding $168 million in damages. The NSO Group was accused of exploiting Meta’s WhatsApp to install its Pegasus spyware program, which has been used in high profile hacks of lawyers, journalists, and activists, into over a thousand phones.
X, a regular target of Turkish censorship orders, complied with an order to block the account of imprisoned Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, a rival of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. X says it is challenging the order.
Bluesky has complied with Turkish orders, too. The platform restricted access to dozens of accounts in the country on “national security and public order” grounds.
Russia restricted internet access in regions of the country ahead of its “Victory Day” celebrations on May 9. “We want the glorious Victory Day to be celebrated at the appropriate level,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said of the shutdowns.
U.S. embassy warns Stockholm against ‘promoting DEI’
Stockholm announced this month that it was surprised to receive a “bizarre” letter from the U.S. embassy in the city. The letter, copies of which went to contractors abroad who work with the federal government, told Stockholm’s planning office to “certify that they do not operate any programs promoting DEI that violate any applicable anti-discrimination laws.” Companies in Europe have reported receiving these letters, but Stockholm’s planning office is the first government agency known to have received one. Officials conveyed that they would not be complying.
Embassies’ efforts to interfere with expression abroad are an issue I discuss at length in my forthcoming book, Authoritarians in the Academy. In 2021, for example, the Chinese embassy unsuccessfully pressured the Italian city of Brescia to cancel an art exhibition it claimed would “endanger the friendly relations between Italy and China” because it was “full of anti-Chinese lies.”
How press freedom is faring today
Argentine President Javier Milei is suing three journalists for defamation for their criticism of him, including a column comparing current events with the rise of Nazism and comments calling him an “authoritarian” and a “despot.”
Swedish journalist Joakim Medin was hit with an 11-month suspended sentence for insulting the Turkish president and is awaiting a trial on terrorism charges. Medin says he was not even in the country when the alleged conduct took place.
Israel’s Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara warned government agencies that their boycott of the media outlet Hareetz over its coverage of the Israel-Hamas war “was conducted through an improper process that cannot be upheld legally.”
Former Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams’ libel suit against the BBC over reporting that he sanctioned a killing in 2006 is underway. BBC says the reporting followed its editorial standards.
Two reporters were detained in Macau, a special administrative region of China, for allegedly “disrupting the operations” of authorities after trying to report on a legislative debate.
Four Russian journalists accused of having ties to Alexey Navalny were sentenced to over five years in a prison colony last month.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas reversed the ban on Al Jazeera, permitting it to resume reporting, after it banned the outlet in January on incitement allegations.
Finally, some good news for a victim of blasphemy laws
Mubarak Bala, a Nigerian humanist initially sentenced to 24 years in prison, is finally tasting freedom upon being released after spending over four years in prison. Mubarak still feared mob violence after his release, and was forced to live in a safe house due to threats.
But Bala has now arrived in Germany, where he is set to begin a residency at Humanistische Vereinigung. “No longer do I dread the routine sounds of the locks, nor the dark, certainly not the extreme weather, too hot or too cold, no longer ill, no longer hungry, no longer lonely, and no longer dreading that the marauders are coming across the fence, to drag me out and behead me,” Bala said in a statement.
The Community Court of the Economic Community of West African States, a high court governing 12 African nations including Nigeria, found last month that a blasphemy statute used to prosecute Bala must be struck down. The Kano State government, however, defended its blasphemy laws and said it “will not allow religious liberty to be weaponized as a cover for sacrilege, insult, and provocation.”
This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback.
Dive Brief:
Dozens of faculty members at Harvard University have signed on to contribute 10% of their salaries, for up to a year, to the institution’s legal fight against the Trump administration.
As of Friday afternoon, 88 senior faculty had signed the agreement, according to organizers. Of those, 43 have done so publicly.
The faculty pledge came just before President Donald Trump said his administration will pull Harvard’s tax-exempt status, adding “It’s what they deserve!” in a Friday social media post.
Dive Insight:
This week’s developments are only the latest in the ongoing battle between Harvard and Trump.
In the president’s numerous attacks on higher education, Harvard in particular has borne intense scrutiny from the Trump administration. That aggression escalated significantly in mid-April when the Ivy League institution rebuked demands from federal agencies to interfere in academic matters, becoming the first well-known college to respond so forcefully.
Since then, the administration has slashed Harvard’s federal funding by almost $2.3 billion, threatened billions of dollars more, opened Title VI investigations into it and its law review, and threatened its ability to enroll international students.
Harvard is now suing the Trump administration over what it calls the government’s efforts to withhold federal funding “as leverage to gain control of academic decisionmaking.”
Though Harvard is one of the best-resourced institutions in the country, the legal battle is likely to be arduous and expensive. This week’s faculty salary pledge described the university as facing “severe financial damage for its defense of academic freedom.”
That damage could come in the form of an unprecedented tax bill.
In previous social media posts, Trump said Harvard “is a JOKE, teaches Hate and Stupidity, and should no longer receive Federal Funds” and should “be Taxed as a Political Entity.”
Trump, as president, does not have unilateral legal authority to pull Harvard’s tax exemption, a status bestowed by the Internal Revenue Service. And neither the president nor employees of the executive office can legally direct the IRS to audit or investigate an institution. Federal law requires IRS employees who receive such directions to report them to the agency’s oversight office.
Despite this, CNN reported in April that the IRS was making arrangements to revoke Harvard’s status, just after Trump posted on the matter.
Such a change would significantly escalate Trump’s financial battle against Harvard that prompted the faculty pledge. The 11 faculty members leading the salary pledge said they intend for the signatories to hold a vote.
“If the majority agrees that the university is making a good faith effort to use its own resources in support of staff, student, and academic programs, faculty will proceed with their donation,” their letter said.
The pledge also acknowledged that not all faculty at Harvard are in a position to pledge 10% — or any — of their income and said the salary contribution plan is “only one of the various ways in which we can express solidarity around the university.”
“We also know that many faculty are making important contributions to the Harvard community during this difficult time in other ways, by helping students and staff directly,” it said.
This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback.
The American Council on Education and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching on Thursday released updates to the Carnegie Classifications, including a redesigned system to describe institutions and a new category to identify colleges that boost student access and earnings.
For the system’s basic classifications, colleges were previously grouped together based on the highest degree they awarded — a method that “fell short of adequately describing the full scope of activity on campuses across the country,” according to the announcement.
The basic classifications — renamed the institutional classifications —now group colleges together based on multiple characteristics,such as their size, the types of degrees they confer, and the fields of study they offer. For instance, the classifications will distinguish between institutions mostly focused on graduate education and those that offer a mix of bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees.
Colleges will also be grouped together by size: Those with under 4,000 students will be classified as small, those with over 20,000 students will be considered large, and those in between will be considered medium. Additionally, colleges will be grouped together by their academic program mix, such as whether they primarily award pre-professional degrees.
The updated list has been highly anticipated ever since ACE and the Carnegie Foundation announced they were overhauling the Carnegie Classifications in 2023 to better reflect the diversity of college missions.
“With this redesign of the Carnegie Classifications, we set out to measure what matters,” Mushtaq Gunja, executive director of the Carnegie Classification systems and senior vice
president at ACE, said in a statement. “Nowadays, institutions can’t be reduced down to the highest degree they award because they exist to serve a wide range of students in a wide variety of ways.”
The system also debuted its new Student Access and Earnings Classification. This designation seeks to measure whether colleges are enrolling students reflective of the regions they serve and how well they are preparing them for the job market.
To calculate this, it examines the share of undergraduates receiving Pell Grants and those from underrepresented racial and ethnic backgrounds, along with alumni earnings eight years after enrollment. Researchers then compare these metrics to the demographics of the regions colleges serve.
This classification groups colleges based on their access and whether their former students have relatively higher or lower earnings compared to their regional peers.
Colleges with higher access and earnings are designated Opportunity Colleges and Universities.
Nearly 500 colleges earned this designation. The group includes a wide variety of institutions, including historically Black colleges like Howard University,in Washington, D.C., and large public universities such as Stony Brook University, in New York.
Meanwhile, colleges that provide lower access but higher earnings contain all eight universities that make up the Ivy League, as well as other prestigious colleges, such as Stanford University. This group also included state flagships such as the University of Wisconsin-Madisonand the University of Florida.
ACE and the Carnegie Foundation also updated their research designations, releasing their new list of research institutions under the revised metrics in February. The changes resulted in a sharp uptick in the number of institutions that earned the coveted R1 status, denoting the highest levels of research activity.
