I have college lecture tour under the slogan “Make Your Campus Great Again.” Spoiler alert: The way to make your campus great again is to reaffirm your commitment to free speech, civil discourse, and encouraging pluralistic voices on campus.
Last week, President Trump took a major step in this direction by signing an executive order directing federal agencies to withhold federal research funding if academic institutions do not respect and support an environment of free inquiry.
But what made me conclude that free speech in higher education is at crisis levels? How and why is it so bad that the campus needs to become great again?
I first realized this could be a problem when I experienced blatant viewpoint discrimination as a student. The professors made fun of me and my Facebook student group promoting our conservative Christian beliefs. We have been blocked from bringing in countless times right center speakers to campus for academic credit. We have experienced discrimination when it comes to the allocation of student government funds.
I thought that surely my experience was an anomaly and most institutions of higher education treated students and the First Amendment with more respect. It turns out I was wrong.
Since completing my undergraduate studies in 2014, I have spent years documenting misconduct by biased professors, write about draconian speech codes in public colleges and universities and highlighting the degradation of academic research and the marketplace of ideas. In fact, it turns out that my experience with censorship on campus was not unique; rather, it was one of thousands of examples of our failure in the American education system.
On Thursday, I watched President Trump from the front row signed the executive order to protect Americans’ free speech on college campuses.
“Under the guise of speech codes, safe and sound spaces, and trigger warnings, these universities have attempted to restrict free thought, impose total conformity, and silence the voices of great teenage Americans like those here today. All of that changes now,” Trump said.
He brought to the stage students who have been harassed, intimidated and attacked on campus by leftists who believe their feelings are more important than First Amendment protections.
Pro-life student Ellen Wittman from Miami University in Ohio told her story of having to warn the entire campus before putting up a pro-life display on campus.
Polly Olsen of Northeast Wisconsin Technical College explained that her school does not allow her to hand out Valentine’s Day cards with Christian messages.
University of Nebraska student Katie Mullen recounted how two university employees protested, harassed and ridiculed her as they promoted her conservative student organization on campus.
These stories, so similar to mine, highlight the great need for reform, and I am grateful that President Trump has allowed these students to share their stories with the world.
I was moved by President Trump’s praise for all the work teenage conservatives have done to highlight this issue, and encouraged by his message to be robust and never give up.
“You do not allow yourself to be silenced by powerful institutions and closed critics,” the president rightly said. After all, we are a determined group of freedom of speech fighters!
The White House has made clear that it stands with campus conservatives and every other teenage person fighting for freedom in America. I feel that the work we did made a real difference and was instrumental in bringing these issues to the President’s attention. Without continued activism, regulatory reporting, and advocacy, this historic executive order would not have been signed.
This was the culmination of many years of demanding work, and I am so grateful that after many years of fighting alone on campus, teenage conservatives finally have the support of the White House; The president has the power to affect real change in ways that students simply cannot. I am humbled and moved by the President’s speech and the support we have fought so demanding for.
There is no better time for this historic action than now because a recent survey found that 38 percent of Republican students sometimes feel unsafe on campus because of their political views, while less than half said they felt welcome at their school.
Of course, the order on paper doesn’t change anything, but the mandate gives federal agencies the authority to do something — without waiting for college students to take legal action and sue the school themselves. In compact, Trump’s guidance strengthens the First Amendment and the agencies that seek to uphold it.
Freedom of speech is not a left or right issue. It’s an American thing. And Trump’s action is a great first step toward making campus great again.
Lauren Cooley is a free speech advocate who organizes college tours on the topic. He is studying/researching the role of the First Amendment in higher education at the University of Miami. You can follow her on Twitter @laurenacooley
