"Speech or Silence? The Future of the First Amendment in Higher Education"
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House Education and Workforce Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Development U.S. House of Representatives
Follow its sittingsSpeaker 2
Courts have been clear that speech on matters of public concern, even when it is offensive or deeply unpopular, remains protected. But when conduct crosses the line into targeted harassment that creates a hostile environment, institutions have a responsibility to act. These are complex facts, specific determinations. They're not well suited to broad one size fits all mandates from Congress. And that brings me to my final point.
Congressional oversight exists to serve the public good, not to strong-arm universities into policing students' political opinions. Legislating which ideas can be expressed on a college campus is a direct assault on academic freedom and the First Amendment, and we should be very cautious about inserting Congress into decisions about campus speech, academic curriculum, or diversity initiatives. The first amendment is a constraint on government power, not a license for government to dictate what can be said, taught, or debated on college campuses. As long as institutions uphold students' civil rights and comply with the law, it is not congress's role to micromanage how they foster dialogue, inclusion, and academic freedom. If we're serious about defending free speech, then we must do so consistently, not just when it is politically convenient, and not just for viewpoints that we agree with.
Our responsibility is to protect both the First Amendment and the civil rights of all students. Those goals are not in conflict, but they do require honesty, consistency, and restraint. And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Speaker 1
Thank you. Pursuant to committee rules H.C., all members who wish to insert written statements into the record may do so by submitting them to the committee clerk electronically in Microsoft Word format by 5PM 14 days after this hearing. Without objections, the hearing records will remain open for 14 days to allow such statements and other materials noted during the hearing to be submitted for the official hearing record. I would now like to turn, to introduce deduction of the four distinguished witnesses. First witness is Mister Tyson Langeford, senior counsel at the Alliance Defending Freedom in Washington, DC.
Second witness is Mister Judd Horace, president and CEO of North American Interfraternity Conference in Fishers, Indiana. Our third witness is Mister Amberson Sykes, senior staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union in New York, New York. And our fourth witness is Steven McGuire, the Paul and Karen Levy fellow in campus freedom at the American Council of Trustees and Alumni in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. We thank the witnesses for being here today and look forward to your testimony pursuant to committee rules. I would ask you to each limit your oral presentations to a three-minute summary of your written statement.
As committee members have many questions for you, the clock will count down from 3 minutes. Have pursuant to committee rule eight d, the committee practice. We will not cut off your testimony until you've reached the 5 minute mark. I'd also like to remind the witnesses to be aware of your responsibilities to provide accurate information to the subcommittee. I would like to first recognize Mister Langeford for your testimony.
Speaker 3
Thank you. Good morning, Chairman Owens, Ranking Member Adams, and members of the subcommittee. My name is Tyson Langhoffer. I'm senior counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom's Center for Free Speech. Alliance Defending Freedom is the world's largest legal organization committed to protecting free speech, religious freedom, parental rights, and the sanctity of life in the family.
Among other things, my team works to protect the constitutional rights of students and faculty at America's public schools and universities. We've secured more than 435 victories for free speech and religious freedom on America's public K through 12 and college campuses. As one recent example, we represented Maggie De Yong in a lawsuit against officials at Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville. School officials issued three no-contact orders against Maggie simply for sharing her conservative political views and religious beliefs on social media and during discussions with other students. These orders were issued without any due process, and without even informing Maggie of the allegations against her.
We also recently represented Ratio Christie, a Christian apologetic organization, in a lawsuit against officials at the University of Houston Clear Lake. The university denied the group official recognition because Ratio Christie requires its leaders to agree with its values and mission. Other campus organizations have leadership requirements, but are still granted recognition. Now these violations didn't occur because the law is unclear. The Supreme Court has made clear time and again that the vigilant protection of constitutional freedoms is nowhere more vital than in the community of American schools.
The court explained that this is true because the core principles of the First Amendment acquire a special significance in the university setting, where the free and unfettered interplay of competing views is essential to the institution's educational mission. Now, unfortunately, most public universities are actively violating these freedoms in at least two different ways. First, they adopt policies that unconstitutionally censor student speech. Some common examples are policies that restrict student speech in the outdoor areas of campus to very small speech zones, or policies that censor or punish speech that the school or other students subjectively say is demeaning or uncivil, or policies that allocate student activity fees in a viewpoint discriminatory manner by denying requests from certain student groups to access these funds to host events. Finally, they use policies that deny official recognition to religious student groups because they require their leaders to agree to the group's statement of faith.
Now these policies are most commonly enforced against conservative and religious students to shut down speech that others disagree with. Another common way that universities violate student speech rights is by refusing to enforce university policies, and instead allowing other students and faculty to violently disrupt or shout down student events. We've also seen a rise in universities issuing no-contact orders against students for simply expressing orthodox, conservative, or religious views. The widespread nature of these policies demonstrates that today's colleges have failed to educate their students about the rights afforded by the First Amendment and about their duties as citizens of this great country. Instead, they've enacted policies to punish speech they deem contrary to the majoritarian view on campus.
That's the essence of fear, the opposite of freedom, and contrary to the purpose of the university and the First Amendment. I commend the members of this committee for recognizing the importance of protecting college students' first amendment rights, and I look forward to participating in today's discussion.
Speaker 1
Thank you. Thank you so much. I now recognize Mister Horaz for your testimony. Thank.
Speaker 4
You on behalf of over 300,000 college men for the opportunity to be here today. You can imagine I often get the question, are fraternities still relevant in society? I always start my answer with these two facts. In the past 20 years, the suicide rate for college-aged men has grown four times faster than the suicide rate for college women. Today, for every 100 men that graduate with a college degree, 132 women are graduating with college degrees.
These issues are addressed through the fraternity experience. The research has proven time and again that students who join fraternities have lower anxiety, depression, and feelings of loneliness than students who do not join fraternities. Fraternities, if you join in your first semester of college, you are more likely to persist to graduation than if you do not join a fraternity in college. What's most important for everyone to hear is these results are most pronounced in first-generation students who join fraternities. That is to say, those students benefit the most from the experience.
We work with 550 campuses across the country. Approximately 150 have specific restrictions only applying to single-sex organizations that do not apply to other organizations on their campus. The most egregious example is Harvard University. In 2016, Harvard enacted a policy that punished their own students simply for belonging to a single-sex organization. Their dean justified it by saying, this action is targeting the behavior and conduct of a few students in a few organizations and acknowledges that other students who have done nothing wrong but join a single sex organization, the negative impact of losing that experience, well, that is just collateral damage for our overall goal.
Collateral damage. The Freedom of Association Act in higher education has passed this committee twice in the last 7 years when controlled by Democrats and Republicans. For that, thank you. I wanna close with this thought that's more personal. I have a daughter at Iowa State University.
I have witnessed in the last 2 years her growth in maturity and confidence and resiliency. And it is directly responsible because she has benefited from her sorority experience. So this bill is about kids as parents. It's about a million young men and women who belong to single sex organizations. And by passing this again out of committee, you are making two powerful statements.
One, the freedom of association on college campuses is something we should protect and preserve. And two, more importantly, no student is collateral damage. Their growth and development, wherever they come from, is something that our country believes in and will always support. Thank you very much.
Speaker 5
Good morning, Chair Wahlberg, Ranking Member Scott, Subcommittee Chair Burgess, Subcommittee Ranking Member Adams, and members of the subcommittee. On behalf of the ACLU, thank you for the privilege of testifying today on this critically important topic. A generation ago, our highest court recognized that, quote, the essentiality of freedom in the community of American universities is almost self-evident. Teachers and students must always remain free to inquire, to study, and to evaluate, to gain new maturity and understanding. Otherwise, our civilization will stagnate and die.
That case, Sweezey versus the state of New Hampshire, was about a state law requiring public university professors to profess loyalty oaths and renounce communism. The Supreme Court said the law was misguided and un-American. Throughout the ensuing decades, we've seen free speech and academic freedom rights challenged on college campuses across the country. While the details of campus speech jurisprudence can get murky, one thing is clear. The government cannot censor students, instructors, or even visitors just because the government doesn't like the ideas they express.
The principle of viewpoint neutrality when regulating campus speech is paramount. The ACLU has been vigorously advancing this principle for over 100 years. It's worth noting that academic freedom and campus speech rights can operate somewhat differently on public and private universities because public universities are themselves governmental entities subject to the limitations of the First Amendment. Public colleges and universities occupy a special place in our society as government-funded institutions responsible for pushing the bounds of our understanding of the world around us. Censorship in the academy is therefore especially dangerous.
In my written testimony, I highlighted six areas where First Amendment rights are being restricted on campuses. Campus speech, censorship of noncitizen scholars and students through weaponized immigration authority, limitations on student groups, curriculum censorship, punishment for online speech by students and professors, and retaliatory investigations and funding restrictions on universities for ideological conformity. Today, I'll focus on just two. First, curriculum censorship. In recent years, we've seen unprecedented efforts by state and federal officials to regulate what ideas can be taught in public colleges and universities.
According to Penn America, as of 2025, more than 50% of college students go to school in a state that has enacted at least one curricular censorship law or policy. Traditionally, academic freedom has served to protect individual professors from censorship, as well as to protect the university from interference by the courts and the political branches of government. This traditional understanding of academic freedom is under severe threat from all sides. Recently, professors at California community colleges have successfully challenged mandatory DEI statements that infringe on academic freedom. At the same time, perfectly legitimate DEI programs that encourage participation and belonging are being targeted by the Trump administration.
In one ACLU case, we're challenging Florida's Stop Woke Act, which prohibits, quote, espousing eight concepts related to race and sex. In federal court, Florida has argued that there is no such thing as academic freedom in public universities, that they are entirely subject to the wisdom of the party and power. This cannot be how our world-class public educational institutions are meant to be run, nor is it consistent with the First Amendment. Second, campus speech controversies are as old as campuses, but the pervasiveness of social media has added a new layer. When students or professors share controversial or offensive views online, universities must decide whether to act.
The ACLU has always stood for the principle that we need clear and fair First Amendment rules that apply to all, regardless of viewpoint, as we've seen recent examples of students being punished for all kinds of views online. I humbly submit that there's a great deal we can all do to help safeguard academic freedom in the First Amendment in higher education. First, we the people must remain vigilant against censorship from local school boards and state legislatures. Together, we can ensure quality public education for all. Second, university leadership should remain focused on their academic and community missions.
Advanced communication about expectations of community members is always a best practice, as are clear and viewpoint-neutral rules about protest, student groups, and on-campus speakers. Finally, you all, Congress, should refrain from misusing your investigatory authority to intimidate universities, and more importantly, stop trying to commandeer fundamental curricular and research decisions of universities by imposing ideological restrictions by legislation, including funding cutoffs. The courts are not the only branch of government charged with protecting constitutional rights. Congress has an equal obligation to protect the Constitution, including by protecting academic freedom and the First Amendment in higher education. I really appreciate the opportunity to speak with you today.
Speaker 6
Chairman Owens, ranking member Adams, distinguished members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. As the Paul and Karen Levy fellow in campus freedom at the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, I direct our Campus Freedom Initiative, which encourages colleges and universities to adopt policies that will help them build cultures of free expression and openness to intellectual diversity. Institutions of higher education should be oases for free inquiry and genuine debate. But as members of this committee know all too well, many schools have become bastions of intolerance, dominated by ideological monocultures, instilling fear that anyone who dares to stray from accepted dogmas will be punished and ostracized. Survey data reveal a troubling pattern of self-censorship coupled with intolerance.
65% of students say they self-censor in class at least monthly, while 71% say shouting down a speaker could be acceptable, and 34% say the same thing about using violence to stop someone from speaking. Meanwhile, nearly 64% of faculty say they cannot voice their opinions at least occasionally, and almost 39% say they are at least somewhat likely to self-censor in the selection of research projects. These statistics are not surprising when one could be canceled as former Harvard professor Carol Hooven was, simply for saying there are two sexes. Or consider that about 50% of faculty endorse requiring job candidates to submit diversity statements, which many others view as inappropriate ideological litmus tests. Surveys of psychologists and sociologists have revealed that around a third of them would discriminate against conservatives or Republicans in hiring decisions.
So what should universities do to improve themselves? Aktis Campus Freedom Initiative has graded over 30 institutions using our gold standard for freedom of expression. The average score so far is about 11 out of 20. Unlike the Ivy League, ACTA does not practice grade inflation, and 11 is an F. Some universities are leading the way.
The University of Wyoming received a score of 18. We will soon recognize the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for achieving a 20/20. Others are trying to improve their scores. Our initiative, still in its early stages, is creating a race to the top. Universities doing less well should begin by ensuring they have a strong policy protecting freedom of expression on campus.
They should include free speech and academic freedom in their mission statements and among their core values. They should adopt policies of institutional neutrality. It is critical that students are taught their free expression rights and responsibilities during the new student orientation. Administrative staff should also receive free expression training. Rules governing student organizations must be transparent and viewpoint-neutral.
Institutions should promote intellectual diversity and ensure that faculty hiring and promotion are free of ideological barriers. Schools that adopt these and other recommendations listed in our active gold standard for freedom of expression will be well on their way to creating an institutional structure in which a campus culture of freedom can thrive. Thank you again for the opportunity to testify today. I look forward to your questions.
Speaker 1
Thank you. A vote has been called in the house pursuant to a previous order. The chair declares a committee on research subject to the call of the chair. We'll plan to reconvene promptly ten minutes after the last vote has been called in the series. The committee now stands observed.
Thanks for your patience. The committee will reconvene and come to order following our recess. Under community rule nine, we'll now question witnesses under the five-minute rule. I will recognize myself for the first five minutes. Mister Langhoffer, Alliance Defending Freedom has sent speakers to college campuses who have been shouted down by students.
Why should Congress and the public be concerned that young people are becoming more intolerant and aggressive toward ideas that differ from their own views?
Speaker 3
Thank you, chairman. That's a great question. I think it's really important. And, in fact, I there's a recent survey that showed that Americans with graduate degrees are twice as likely as those with high school diplomas to support political violence. So what does that show us?
That shows us that individuals that are the most educated are the least likely to actually use reason and logic to engage in political discourse. Rather, they are willing to engage in violence. And that is a real problem. And when you pair that with the fact of the lack of intellectual diversity, Yale just issued a study this month where it was a large survey that their faculty conducted, and it showed they came out and they said that echo chambers don't produce the best teaching, research, and scholarship. Yet Yale has a 36-to-1 Democrat to Republican ratio in their faculty.
So what is that telling us is it's telling us that our universities are an echo chamber, and what we know is that uniformity of thought breeds intolerance of disagreement. So when you pair this uniformity of thought, and then we don't have an environment where individuals can go and hear a speaker they disagree with, that creates a real problem because individuals who have never heard the other side don't get to hear that side, and then they lose the opportunity to be persuaded and to understand that the other side has, you know, has a valid argument.
Speaker 1
Very good. Thank you. Mister Horace, the First Amendment guarantees individuals the right to associate with others, including on public campuses. But we know that colleges and universities don't always enforce their standards equally. What are some of the examples of Greek life being treated differently than other student organizations on campus?
Speaker 4
Yeah. I, for in my remarks, talked about Harvard, but another school that's out there is Duke University. They, on their own, with no research cited, decided that you could not join a single-sex organization until your sophomore year. They don't have that requirement for any other student organization. And when asked why the rationale, it's this: this is what we want to do.
That left the students at Duke with a very difficult decision. We remain recognized by the school as a recognized student organization, or we have to operate independently off campus without their support. Both the men and women in that instance chose to operate independently off campus, which is not an ideal situation. The Freedom of Association Act in higher education actually will strengthen the relationships between single sex orgs and higher education because it will force everyone to be treated equal as all other student organizations. So we won't have to leave campus in order to continue to have our right of association.
Speaker 1
Okay. Thank you. Doctor McGuire, based on the campus freedom initiative's gold standard, which evaluates universities' first amendment policies, how should institutions of higher education craft their policies around freedom of expression and its limits?
Speaker 6
Thank you for the question. Yes. Our gold standard covers 20 different policies and practices that we think colleges and universities should adopt to protect and promote freedom of expression on campus. Ultimately, the goal, of course, is to create a culture of freedom of expression and openness to intellectual diversity on campus. But the first and critical step is to set a structure, put a structure in place, that will allow for that kind of activity to flourish.
So as far as the kinds of policies that we recommend, at the top level, we think it's critical to adopt something like the Chicago principles or a similar statement, a policy of institutional neutrality. These sort of set the table that this is an institution that respects freedom of expression and that is open to debate and a variety of points of view. And then from there, you need to look at the policies that affect students in terms of conduct inside and outside of the classroom, as well as the organization of student groups. All of these policies should be content or viewpoint neutral, and they should be geared towards allowing for a robust debate and a wide variety of views to be present.
Speaker 1
Thank you. I've always felt that when someone is confident about the way they think, then they have their ability to be respectful for others and have that opportunity to maybe talk and try to convince them to come over one day. And that was old school, so I'm looking forward to getting back to our kids, being educated, to be confident, to say we can discuss things we disagree with without being the word disagreeable. So, I appreciate that. With that, I'm gonna recognize a ranking member for her purpose of question of witnesses.
Speaker 2
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You don't look old-school. You don't look old-school. Let me start where I always do on this issue. Free speech and academic freedom both matter, and students deserve both.
But this conversation can't be one sided. What we're seeing isn't just debate on campus. It's growing pressure on what can be taught, who can speak, and how institutions operate. We had talk of a free speech crisis, but the data shows relatively few incidents each year. At the same time, there are real efforts to limit speech through curriculum restrictions, funding pressure, and policies that may chill faculty voices.
The First Amendment protects all viewpoints, even uncomfortable ones, but it isn't without limits. Institutions still have a duty under civil rights law to protect students from unlawful discrimination. So this is about balance, and we cannot overcorrect in ways that chill speech or ignore when speech crosses onto conduct that harms learning. And when students and faculty say they are self-censoring, that should concern all of us. A campus where people are afraid to speak is not a place of learning.
It's a place of silence. Mister Sykes, let me start here. Should faculty face repercussions for things they say in the classroom? Where does academic freedom begin and end, in your view? And how do we draw a clear line between teaching controversial ideas and engaging in conduct that falls outside the bounds of a learning environment?
Speaker 5
Thank you very much, representative Adams. It's true academic freedom is of paramount importance, but the exact bounds of it are not always very clear. And so while we do think that it's very important, that especially in the areas of scholarship and research, we empower our professors to explore things that are uncomfortable. Right? We need our researchers not to be confined by the current understanding of any particular issue, never mind the current administration.
So we've seen state legislatures, boards of regents, pass a variety of curriculum censorship laws throughout the country. More than, as I mentioned earlier, more than 50% of college students go to school in a state that currently has one of those policies. And so where those are in place, they vary, but the most extreme examples, like the stop woke act, which we have challenged, say that you're not allowed to teach certain ideas. You're not allowed to mention certain ideas in class. And, of course, viewpoint diversity is extremely important, and the ACLU supports that idea.
But what we're seeing is something quite different, which is responding to some perceived crisis with actual government authority to prohibit speech. Sorry. Okay.
Speaker 2
Thank you. I wanna move on. I have a few more questions. So, let me turn to the private institutions. I taught it 1 for 40 years.
But as you know, they operate under a different legal framework than public universities. If a private university, Mister Sykes, chooses to adopt a broader harassment policy, then what courts have outlined in Davis versus Monroe is part of its mission. Can it do so without infringing on a student's constitutional rights? And what guardrails should be in place to make sure that those policies are not used to suppress viewpoint diversity?
Speaker 5
So we, as you said, in general, the First Amendment binds government entities, which includes public universities. Private universities are not bound by the First Amendment, so they have a lot more leeway to craft their own policies. So they because they do not have the same restrictions under the First Amendment, except in California where there's a thing called Leonard Law, which essentially imports those restrictions. Private universities, of course, have their own commitments to free speech, but they are not bound by the First Amendment per se.
Speaker 2
Let me ask you something more recent. We've seen cases where universities, and I'll call out the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, are expanding oversight into the classroom itself, including policies that allow administrators to monitor or record instruction. That raises a serious question. At what point does institutional oversight begin to chill academic freedom and the open exchange of ideas? At what point does the kind of oversight begin to chill faculty speech and academic freedom?
And what message does that send to students about whether it's safe to engage in open discussion?
Speaker 5
Your honor, I think it's totally sorry. Not your honor. I'm a litigator, so you'll excuse me. Representative Adams, it's absolutely true that within the confines of a university, they might make decisions about which courses to offer, which professors are being successful, and there might be all sorts of judgments about what's going on campus. But that's very different and categorically different from prohibiting ideas and targeting certain thoughts and ideas that the administration would like to eliminate.
Speaker 2
Thank you very much. Universities just don't benefit from the First Amendment. They help make it real. The First Amendment in turn protects the university as a place for debate and discovery. We gotta be careful not to undermine either.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. Thank you.
Speaker 1
Thank you. I'd like to recognize the chairman of the full committee, my friend from Michigan, mister Walbert.
Speaker 7
Thank you, mister chairman, and thanks for putting this hearing together, and I thank the panel for being here. It's an important issue we discussed, especially since it's America, and the king yesterday referred constantly to our freedom that comes under our constitution, our first amendment, and it was neat to hear. I'm proud to be the sponsor of HR 5505, which is the Equal Campus Access Act of 2025, which would ensure public colleges and universities don't treat religious student organizations differently than other student organizations due to their beliefs, their practices, their speech, their leadership standards, or standards of conduct. Mister Langhoffer, how has the alliance defending freedom supported religious organizations that have been denied official recognition by their university for enforcing their leadership requirements?
Speaker 3
Thank you, chair. We've represented many religious organizations throughout the country. It's not limited to any state who are being denied on a regular basis recognition simply because they require their leaders to adhere to a statement of faith. And as the Supreme Court has recognized over and over again, an association, a private association, can't carry out its mission unless it can ensure that its leaders actually agree to that mission. That makes sense for everybody.
It makes sense for religious organizations. It makes sense for secular organizations. And, unfortunately, what we see all too often is public universities treating private universities differently. And, in fact, we just had an issue with Atlantic Cape Community College where it was denying it specifically said religious organizations are the only organization that cannot access student funds that every other student pays into. And it said religious organizations.
And so it's singling them out, and it's putting the foot on the scale and stopping religious students from being able to fully participate in college life. And I think that harms the religious students, but it also harms all students because they're not exposed to the full range of beliefs at their campus.
Speaker 7
Whether intentional or out of ignorance, that type of thing is being done. And having had it done probably many times over the years that we didn't catch, and now we're waking up to it. I appreciate your work.
Speaker 7
Mister Horace, some colleges and universities have restricted the ability of students to join Greek life, as you've indicated and as we've discussed before. How is this an infringement on the freedom of association rights of students?
Speaker 4
At the core, our organizations are about young men deciding what they want to belong to and being invited into that. That is an intimate connection between the student and the organization, and it's one that we should not get in the way of. We agree with higher education that the conduct of the students should be regulated and that there's a student code of conduct, but it should be equally applied to the students who belong to fraternities and sororities, and students that belong to coed organizations or just general students. Specifically, I wanna give you an example. At the University of Virginia, there was a Rolling Stones article that alleged very troubling allegations of sexual misconduct from one fraternity.
Now, aside from those allegations were proven to be not true and Rolling Stones was sued justifiably so, the other part of the story is the entire fraternity and sorority community, based on that report, was shut down for months at a time and unable to operate. Students that were appalled with the allegation, students that didn't do anything wrong, students that are in committees to fight sexual assault on college campus, they were still suspended in their fraternity and sorority. There is no other place. Athletes are not treated this way. Other organizations are not treated this way.
But for some reason, some institutions believe fraternities and sororities do not have the entitlement to due process as organizations or individuals.
Speaker 7
Yeah. And the freedom of association is hindered as well at that point. So that's right. Thank you. Doctor Maguire, the campus freedom initiative conducts student surveys on free expression.
What questions are included, and do you see a difference in response within any subgroup of college students?
Speaker 6
Thank you for the question. Yes. We ask questions about self-censorship. We ask questions about the political climate on campus. We ask questions about willingness to engage in intolerant behaviors like shoutdowns or violence, all those sorts of things.
And we survey enough students at particular institutions that we're able to look at subgroups within the student population. And we notice routinely that conservative students are more likely to report that they self-censor compared to liberal students on campus. And conversely, we find that conservative students are much less likely to endorse intolerant behaviors like willingness to shout down speakers, compared to their liberal peers.
Speaker 7
Interesting facts. Thank you so much. My time has expired. I yield back.
Speaker 1
Thank you. Now I'd like to recognize my friend from Oregon, Miss Juan Nguinichi. Thank.
Speaker 8
Thank you very much, mister chairman. Thank you to the witnesses for being here today.
Speaker 8
Part of the title of this hearing is the future of the First Amendment in higher education. And I need to remind everybody that the First Amendment doesn't just include the free speech clause. It also includes the Establishment Clause, which is an important part of the First Amendment as well. There was widespread agreement that there would be no nationally established church. I just wanna get that out there, because it's an important part of the First Amendment as well.
So the Republican majority has repeatedly denounced diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, DEI. Just yesterday, we had an entire hearing in the early childhood, elementary, and secondary education subcommittee during which the majority tried to argue that DEI undermines excellence and harms students. They did that pretty unpersuasively, in my opinion. And today, the majority wants to talk about how we need more viewpoint diversity on college campuses. So, clearly, diversity seems to be acceptable when used to advance educational opportunity for people with certain points of view, particularly on the far right according to my colleagues, but other populations don't seem to deserve the same opportunities.
And this hypocrisy is especially frustrating when we consider the very real issues students are facing across the country. They're navigating more than coursework. The gun violence on their campuses and their communities, cuts to essential programs like SNAP, threats of immigration enforcement that are creating fear and instability, rising barriers to access to health care. They're trying to build their future during all of this. And importantly, tuition costs are higher than ever, as state investment in higher education plummets.
In fact, the save student loan repayment program is gonna be eliminated this summer, and many borrowers are gonna see their monthly loan payments skyrocket, often by hundreds of dollars. So a lot of challenges are happening. That's what we should be hearing about, how to make college affordable. That would be really helpful. But instead, my colleagues are continuing to vilify institutes of higher education.
Unfortunately, it feels like it's to further a political agenda. Mister Sykes, how have the Trump administration's actions to limit diversity, equity, inclusion programs resulted in a stifling of free speech on college campuses?
Speaker 5
Thank you very much. There are lots of ways. I think what you pointed out is an important one, that we have challenged several Trump executive orders regarding diversity, equity, and inclusion, with regard to higher ed funding, with regard to research funding. And we've found these to be, we've been mostly successful in the courts. The courts have not been willing to accept these types of infringements on academic freedom, but it has been staggering the number of types of attempts, whether it's through deportation of students or all of these other mechanisms that have been used.
Speaker 8
Really challenging. I'd be interested to hear from any of my Republican colleagues if they spoke to the vice president about this because his mother-in-law is the head of a DEI department at a public university in California. So if we wanna talk about limiting speech on campus, let's discuss some of the words that faculty and administrators are now instructed by this administration that they may not say. Diversity, equity, inclusion are obviously on that list, but some of the other words that the Trump administration has flagged to limit or avoid across federal agencies, for example, Black with a capital B, words like female and women. To list a few more: immigrants, disabilities, Native American, LGBTQ, mental health, multicultural, socioeconomic equal opportunity, both the terms gender and sex, and even the word historically.
So according to government memos and agency guidance, the Trump administration has ordered all of these words to be removed from public-facing websites and eliminated in school curricula. So, mister chair, I would like to submit for the record a New York Times article entitled, quote, these words are disappearing in the new Trump administration. So I submit to colleagues that this is suppression of free speech. And if you wanna have a hearing about free speech, whether it be on college campuses or anywhere in our country, you need to speak up. I suggest we use our First Amendment right to speak out while we still can about these issues and about how this administration is actually harming our free speech rights.
It's not college campuses. Yes. We should have a diversity of opinions on college campuses. Absolutely. Of all places, that's where we should have the free exchange of ideas.
This administration is making that harder, and I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Speaker 1
Thank you. And I'd like to recognize my friend from Missouri, Doctor Honor.
Speaker 9
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for holding this important hearing, and thank you to the witnesses for being here today. As a physician, I am deeply troubled by the erosion of free speech in medical education. Across the country, medical schools have adopted sweeping DEI policies that function as ideological gatekeeping, governing admissions, coursework, clinical training, as, and even faculty advancement. These policies operate as mandatory belief systems that silence inquiry and undermine evidence-based medicine.
And this has been going on for a long time. I remember when I was graduating from medical school, we didn't take the Hippocratic Oath. We took some World Health Organization oath. The students are instructed to view every aspect of care through a predetermined social justice lens. They're told that gender identity must override biological sex, and that obesity is primarily a product of oppression, and that questioning these claims could have professional consequences.
Mandatory statements, oaths, orientations, and seminars enforce conformity, while promotions and academic advancement come only to those who apply. And doctors who dare to question what is best for their patients are paying the price. Consider doctor Alan Josephson, a nationally respected child psychiatrist who is invited by the Heritage Foundation to speak in his personal capacity about legitimate concerns about how to treat youth experiencing gender dysphoria. He spoke against subjecting children to harmful drugs and surgery in radical, misguided attempts to treat the distress a child may be experiencing. After leading an otherwise exemplary career, he was swiftly demoted and then dismissed from his position at the University of Louisville.
The courts upheld that he had engaged in First Amendment-protected speech and had been unfairly retaliated against. Still, physicians like Doctor Josephson who speak up are rarely able to put the pieces of their career back together. I personally know of too many doctors, one a chair of endocrinology at a major medical school, who have similar stories. Doctors, nurses, and medical students have to be able to ask questions and challenge assumptions to deliver appropriate health care. Free speech is the foundation of evidence-based medicine.
Mister Langhoffer, can you tell us about the Alliance Defending Freedom's work in defending faculty, including Doctor Josephson, who have shared their views in their personal capacities while off campus?
Speaker 3
Sure. Thank you, representative. I think doctor Josephson's story is the quintessential example. As you said, he had a 40 year career in academia. He had led the University of Louisville for 16 years.
From 2014 to 2016, he had perfect marks on his reviews. In 2017, he spoke about the treatment of children with gender dysphoria. And what did he say? He said simply, hey. We need to understand the underlying cause of these, why are these children questioning their gender dysphoria before we give them irreversible medical treatments.
And so, but yet, because of that, he was fired. Not and the real concerning thing was not a single one of his faculty members watched his video to see what he said and came and debated him and said, let's have a discussion. There was not a single discussion. Yet within weeks, he was demoted. That is a huge concern with medical schools training the next generation, but also for the treatment of children.
And what he said, he's been completely exonerated by the cast report which came out of the UK just this last year.
Speaker 9
A cast report out of the UK, Finland. Remember, remember, trans in kids was supposed to prevent suicide. In young girls and young women, doubling the rate of serious mental illness in boys. Sextupling, six times sextupling the rate of serious mental illness in kids who were subjected to chemical and surgical mutilation. And, of course, the HHS report as well.
He has been exonerated. And even before those reports, mister Langhoffer, it is clear that children with gender dysphoria often suffer from psychiatric comorbidities, anxiety, depression. Some are victims of abuse. Some are on the autism spectrum. To not ask the question, why gender dysphoria?
No. That's just who they are. Getting away from asking questions is a problem in American medicine. Doctor Marty McCarrie wrote an excellent book called Blind Spots on this subject. But no, thank you for ADF's work in defending doctor Josephson and for standing for his free speech.
I appreciate it. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Speaker 1
Thank you. I'd like to now recognize my friend from California, Mr. Kamala.
Speaker 10
Thank you. Mister Armisen, as an ACLU First Amendment litigator, you have represented both conservative and liberal clients. Right?
Speaker 5
Yes. In fact, we were just exchanging that. Tice, I helped write an amicus brief defending Turning Point USA's right to open a chapter at Arkansas State in a case that was litigated by Mister Langhofer.
Speaker 10
So, you know, liberals are conservatives. What, you know, we all have a stake in freedom of speech. Is that what you would agree with?
Speaker 10
So but I wanna make a contention here, a claim that no previous administration has tested the limits of the First Amendment and higher education like this administration. Mister Sykes, the secretary of education, Linda McMahon, has stated that she believes that, and I quote, universities should continue to be able to do research as long as they're abiding by the laws and in sync, I think, with the administration and what I think the administration is trying to accomplish, end quote. Mister Sykes, is it legal to condition federal funding for academic institutions based on whether they are, quote, unquote, in sync with the administration's ideology?
Speaker 5
We think that's totally inappropriate. Of course, the government can set some conditions on its funding. But returning to the previous round of questions, what we've seen is not conditions about how it may be used or the normal limitations on federal grants. What we've seen is bans on things like gender ideology. So you're not allowed to get funding to research an idea, whether you agree with a particular conception of gender ideology or not.
Medical professionals are gonna come in contact with people who have different views, different experiences, and the idea that the federal government is now prohibiting folks from studying things that are happening in the world to provide medical advice, we think, is of the gravest proportions.
Speaker 10
So can the government disqualify an institution for federal funds because they disagree with them, disagree with the government?
Speaker 10
Federal data shows that the administration has targeted more than 4,000 grants for termination to over 600 universities and colleges across the country, affecting institutions in every state. That totals up to billions of dollars in funding that went to all types of institutions: public, private, land grant, and community colleges. Mister Sykes, how does the condition of federal grants affect students and faculties' exercise of free speech on campus?
Speaker 5
Well, it can be direct in terms of withdrawing funding for research that is vitally important, as we said, to pushing the bounds of our understanding of the world around us. Of course, but it can also be indirect. And so students' ability to study with particular professors, to explore particular ideas can be stifled by these state laws or these executive orders that limit funding for particular types of research and ideas.
Speaker 10
So does this type of cutting of research that I've described, research funding, protect free speech?
Speaker 10
Does the opposite. The administration has not only flexed its funding powers, it has also used other offices and investigatory agencies to ensure that institutions are, "quote, unquote," in sync with their priorities. Mister Sykes, how has the Trump administration used this investigatory power over colleges to regulate speech on campus?
Speaker 5
Excessively. We've seen lawsuits filed against multiple universities, threats of lawsuits, threats to funding, threats of all types of federal actions against universities, strictly to try to enforce ideological conformity. And this kind of meddling in the academy is unprecedented.
Speaker 10
At various points over the last year, the Trump administration says it has attempted to force universities and colleges to agree to their demands, most notably in their, quote, compact for academic excellence in higher education, unquote, which was distributed to nine universities on October 1. This compact includes requirements relating to hiring practices, international student enrollment, definitions of gender, commitments to, quote, unquote, institutional neutrality, and the shuttering of departments that, quote, unquote, punish, belittle, or spark violence against conservative ideas, end quote. Mister Sykes, government overreach and legality questions aside, if a campus were to enter into a compact like the one that the administration has already proposed, what would the immediate and long term impacts be on research and scholarship produced by that institution?
Speaker 5
Well, it would be extremely detrimental. I mean, thankfully, the universities almost all rejected the compact, understanding what a grave threat it is to their independence and to academic freedom, not only on those campuses, but on campuses across the country.
Speaker 10
Well, thank you. If my colleagues on the majority want to be champions of free speech, then be champions of free speech. If you are unbiased offenders of the First Amendment, then address the violations in your.
Speaker 10
administrations in your own administration. I yield back, mister chairman.
Speaker 1
Thank you. And I'd like to recognize my friend from North Carolina, Mr. Harris.
Speaker 12
Thank you, mister chairman, and thank you to all the witnesses for your expertise and what you've shared with us today. I enjoyed reading your testimonies that you shared in advance, as well as hearing you today. Mister Langhoffer, over the past several decades, we have witnessed colleges and universities engage in a concerted effort to restrict the free and open exchange of ideas on campuses across the country. These colleges and universities have shut down civil discourse and made it extremely difficult for religious and political student organizations to receive recognition on campus. When a student group's recognition is an entryway for access to campus resources, like access to a portion of student activity fees, the option to reserve meeting space on campus at no expense, and the ability to advertise the organization to other students.
It's no surprise that colleges have weaponized the recognition and mandatory fee processes against student groups they do not like. One example of this came to light in a 2020 lawsuit against Cal State University San Marcos, which found that the gender equity and the LGBTQA pride center on campus received a combined $296,498 to fund their activities, while a recognized Student For Life Group was denied a $500 grant request. This is just one clear example of how many colleges and universities show ideological preferences and funding, with no transparency for how funding decisions are approved or denied. So my question for you, mister Langhoffer, is when religious and political student organizations have the recognition and mandatory fee process used against them, what typical recourse or appeals process do these groups actually have with colleges and universities before they come and turn to groups like yours at the Alliance Defending Freedom for help?
Speaker 3
Thank you, representative. You know, unfortunately, most colleges and universities have these large funds, student activity fee funds, and they give the student government the ability, almost free reign, to allocate those funds. And what we've seen with student governments is they are very ideologically to the left. And so they, that allows them to fund the groups they like and defund the ones they don't. And, there is no appeal process many times.
Sometimes there's appeal, but even that appeal just goes to an administrator, and there isn't any check on their authority. So what they're forced to do is come to our organization, and we have to file a lawsuit. The problem is college students only have four years there. It might be their second or third year there. They're not gonna get through this lawsuit, this federal lawsuit, in time, in order to be able to see the ability to have, you know, these important conversations.
At San Marcos, my client just wanted to pay $500 to a speaker to speak on a pro-life issue on campus. As you said, the other organizations got $300. There was a 100 student organizations that got $5,000 to share total. 300,000 to 2, 5,000 to a 100. That's not fair, and it's unconstitutional.
And even, yes, we were able to vindicate their rights in federal court, but it wasn't in time for those students who saw it to be able to actually use that. That's not fair, and it's sending the wrong message to not only my clients, but to all of the students that their viewpoint is not welcome on campus.
Speaker 12
Well, it is not fair. It's unconstitutional, as you say, but it's also very telling of the realities that we face. I mentioned in the example earlier, many universities do charge these mandatory fees for activities and clubs, but fail to distribute them fairly among the student organizations. How has ADF challenged these unfair funding practices that are impacting the religious and political student organizations?
Speaker 3
So one great example is the Cal State example. And the good thing about that was we were able to steal the entire Cal State system, which is the largest university system in the nation. We estimated that there was over $50,000,000 every year that they allocated through their 25 campuses. That is a lot of money that students can use to bring diverse viewpoints to the campus. Through that lawsuit, we were able to change the entire system's allocation process so that all of the student fees are now allocated in a viewpoint neutral manner so that all students at Cal State campuses have access to that pursuant to the Supreme Court precedent.
And we think that made a huge impact. We sued the University of Florida several years ago as well, which has over $20,000,000 that they allocate every year, and it was being done in an unfair, unconstitutional manner. And now every student at Florida has the ability to access those funds.
Speaker 12
Oh, thank you, sir. Mister Oris, real quickly, I have just about 20 seconds. But you mentioned being able to see university violations of students' rights falling into four broad categories. I wanted to give you just a moment to mention those four broad categories, what they are, and how this is affecting the Greek community.
Speaker 4
Well, I'll give you two in my short amount of time. The first is the basic access to the experience. Often, fraternity and sorority members are required to wait longer periods than any other student to join another student organization. That limits their association rights and, frankly, limits their college experience in an unfair, inconsistent manner. The second is, oftentimes, the allegations of misconduct, which should be investigated and should be taken through the student code of conduct for individuals and orgs with clear, credible allegations.
They then are applying suspensions to all of the other organizations of similar nature. At North Carolina State, if the football team was accused of hazing, that team should be investigated. But there's no possible way that the basketball team or the women's softball team should be suspended and not have their season.
Speaker 1
Thank you. I'd like to now recognize my friend from California, Mister Detle Saldier.
Speaker 13
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Reminded of a story I heard some time ago about Jefferson explaining to somebody who came to Monticello and asked him, you have those busts in the entryway. Why do you have Hamilton facing you? And he said, you don't agree on anything. And he and two people clearly believed in education, literacy, and thought higher education was important.
And Jefferson's response to why he had Hamilton there was when they said, don't agree with him or anything. He said, that's why. So in that context, I find this frustrating because I think of higher education in the context of America and being a Californian with a district, with a lot of alumni and staff from the University of California because my district is right next to it, is having this free expression shouldn't be, it should be joyful just as Jefferson mentioned that Hamilton and he would fight. But it's become so politically, us against them, without the acceptance that they might be right occasionally. I just wanna make sure my colleagues aren't saying I think they're right, maybe occasionally.
So, Sykes, in that context, how do we create an open environment that, in education, people irrespective of their ideological beliefs feel that they can have an open discussion. And this is also in the context of money and politics, and in higher education.
Speaker 5
Thank you so much. Yes. I mean, there's so much that universities can do to foster an environment of free expression and understanding. Making people feel welcome, making people feel comfortable, is a part of that work as well. But, of course, they cannot do that without eliminating views that are controversial.
And so we have worked with universities. I'm a professor at a university myself. And there's all sorts of things that teachers can do on the classroom level, deans can do at the departmental level, and universities can do at the institutional level to improve this situation. The problem that we're seeing now is the political branches trying to intervene.
Speaker 5
And determine what types of ideas can be expressed and learned in these higher education institutions.
Speaker 13
And you mentioned social media. This had a huge impact, obviously, as a member of the Bay Area. Could you go a little further on that as to how that's impacting higher education and First Amendment abilities?
Speaker 13
The fact that the social media companies are, until recently, have been very impervious to any kind of liability for the consequences of how people use social media.
Speaker 5
Yes, your honor. As we said, the First Amendment binds government, and therefore does not bind social media companies. They have their own First Amendment rights. But these are tough questions about sort of how do schools balance their responsibility to keep campuses safe, while also having an obligation to respect all viewpoints. I'll just say the ACLU has recently advocated for the free speech rights of students and professors, talking about Gaza, talking about all sorts of issues within the United States.
I even wrote a brief recently in a case involving a self-described white Christian nationalist lost law student. And so even for the most abhorrent types of views, we need to be vigilant in making sure that we create an environment where ideas are open to being tested.
Speaker 13
Okay. Still, after you get a lot of funds from very large, not unsurprising donors who support your position. Is that where most of your funds come from?
Speaker 13
Do you have a percentage? I don't know that. Okay. Mister Orza, how do you pay your mortgage?
Speaker 4
Well, most of it comes from student fees. And so one of the reasons why we need this bill is they shouldn't be paying for litigation against their host institution. They should be paying for tuition, and it should be applied to help them get through college. So this bill will help strengthen those relationships of the students with their institutions by being treated fairly.
Speaker 13
K. Mister Briar, do you have anything to add on any of the questions I've asked, social media, or just how we keep this balanced and where your funding comes from?
Speaker 6
Thank you. Well, our active gold standard, as I've said, has 20 policies that we recommend colleges adopt, and we think putting all of these in place would protect free expression for everybody on campus. As far as our funding, it comes from a variety of large and small individual donors as well as some grant funding from foundations.
Speaker 1
Thank you. Now I'd like to recognize my friend from Wisconsin, Mr. Kaufmann.
Speaker 14
I'd like to thank you for having this hearing. I really can't think of a class of people who feel more muzzled as to what they can say or even more what they can write than an American college student in the twenty twenties. I think every Republican, as they get around institutions of education or just political organizations, again and again comes across college students who talk about the frustration of having to lie on their essays or on their tests and pretend that they're left wing progressives in order to get a decent grade. I mean, it's sad. It's like, you know, communist China in the 60s or something.
You gotta spout things that you know are not true in order to get a decent grade. And that certainly is true in any discipline that has an ideological component. Journalism, political science. I know a guy who tells me I don't believe it, but he says all the English literature professors in the University of Wisconsin system, which has to be well over 100. He's the only Republican one out of 100.
The law school, another offender of this. Do any of you know, in the drive to diversity, are there any universities out there who are proactively saying we wanna do something to get some conservative journalism professors or some conservative English literature professors in their universities. Can you give me the best examples of that today? Because I'll tell you, if we had such racial imbalance, people would be going up the wall, it is really kind of irrelevant compared to ideological bias. Why don't we go right down, start from the left?
Speaker 3
Mister representative, I am aware. I believe that Texas A and M University recently moved to start up their journalism program and to do it in the old school liberal style of journalism, which is actually, you know, tell the truth in an unbiased way to actually communicate those things. So I do think there are some universities that are recognizing it, and, hopefully, they're gonna continue to move in that way. So not only the professors, but the students get a buy a balanced viewpoint, and actually learn how to do journalism the way it was meant to be done.
Speaker 4
I have not. But there are many young men who join culturally based fraternities, historically black fraternities and sororities. And we try to provide that experience and not have universities interfere with the association going on between those students. So we are a place on campus where young men feel safe and comfortable to have diverse viewpoint conversations.
Speaker 14
I'm saying can you take an English essay or have to give an English literature essay without having to color what you're saying for fear of revenge being gotten from some professor, some progressive professor. I
Speaker 4
Am not I, I haven't taken an essay in a long time, nor am I not aware of that. But if it is true, that's very troubling.
Speaker 14
Come on. You shouldn't be a witness here if you don't know it is not true. Every conservative college kid says they gotta measure what they say. Mister Sykes, is anything going on in college to remove the bias that you get when, like, 95% of your English professors vote Democrat, vote Progressive, probably?
Speaker 5
You know, I think the viewpoint diversity is extremely important, and I think most good professors and deans understand that. I do think there's a difference between self-censorship because of perceived cultural norms in a particular institution.
Speaker 14
They're not gonna get a decent grade, they all know it. So they gotta lie on their test to get a decent grade if they want to get into medical school or law school down the road. That they gotta lie. That's what's going on today and again.
Speaker 5
I agree with Mister Horace that if that's happening, it would be distressing. I think that that's different from the type of actual censorship that we're seeing in places like Texas A and M, where certain ideas are being banned, and professors are being told they cannot teach particular books, particular topics, show particular films in their college graduate level courses.
Speaker 6
For the question. Yeah. There are surveys showing that students report having to misrepresent their beliefs.
Speaker 14
Having to lie. Lie about their most deeply held beliefs because they're on a university campus. But go ahead.
Speaker 6
And our surveys do show that students self-censor in the classroom, and they self-censor on their assignments. They tend to worry about reactions they'll get from their peers, but also from their professors. Unfortunately, there's not as much being done right now in higher education to address the problem of intellectual diversity as we need, especially among the faculty. There are, however, signs of improvement. For instance, I'll point to the civic centers that are being created on campuses around the country.
Arizona State University, University of North Carolina, Tennessee. In Ohio, five have recently been created, and they're trying to create atmospheres in which students can find intellectual diversity among their faculty, so that they will be able to wrap up.
Speaker 14
The classes. That's not the people who determine their grades. Okay. Thank you very much. We love this subcommittee.
Speaker 15
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you all for not taking the bait from my Republican colleagues' outrageous statements. I appreciate that. As a representative of Arizona's 7th Congressional District, I'm deeply concerned by the escalating efforts to politicize our higher education institutions, and the limits these actions have on our students and faculty. This issue hits close to home.
The University of Arizona is one of only nine universities nationwide specifically targeted by this administration's Compact for Academic Excellence, a move that sought to pressure schools into adopting specific governance and speech standards in exchange for federal grants. My constituents deserve to know, and my daughter who attends the University of Arizona deserves to know that their public universities remain spaces for genuine inquiry, free expression, protected from both federal overreach and state censorship. In light of these pressures on Arizona's institutions and schools across the country, Mr. Sykes, I'd like to direct my questions to you. State action promoting conservative speech: recently, some states have established centers at public institutions focused on issues like civic leadership or classical liberal education that have largely been recognized as attempts to increase conservative viewpoints on campus. How should courts deal with these centers, which are often established as nonpartisan or nonpolitical, but uphold viewpoint-specific ideas?
Speaker 5
Thank you. In general, universities are free to establish centers as they see fit, and it doesn't pose a First Amendment problem for a university to create such a center.
Speaker 15
Okay. Free reports indicate that the current administration has threatened to deport students for holding political views that differ from its own. Data from institutions like Yale suggests that these are not theoretical concerns. International students now report hesitating to speak out even regarding their own research for fear of government retaliation. This creates a tiered system of speech on campuses where some are free to speak and others must remain silent to remain in the country.
Does the constitution suggest that there are different fees free speech rights for citizen students versus non-citizen students?
Speaker 5
No. No. Then the recent decision in AAUP v Rubio makes that crystal clear, that these efforts to silence lawful permanent residents is unconstitutional.
Speaker 15
Mhmm. It's still happening on a regular basis, though. In practice, how has the Trump administration treated the free speech rights of noncitizen students?
Speaker 5
You know? Well, people have been abducted in the night and secreted around the country and attempted to be deported simply for their ideas. So we have seen people's lives literally in danger, under these circumstances from this administration.
Speaker 15
Yeah. I know that there are a lot of international students that are here studying, you know, doing their PhD, that are saying, like, there's ice at my door because I made this statement or I attended this rally and my information got out there. It's a very scary time, and we should not be, as I hear, you know, during this hearing that we want free speech. We want people to be able to express themselves in whatever things they want to talk about. I truly believe that.
Even if it's an opinion that I don't agree with, I think you have the right to say it. And so we have to push back on any censorship when it comes to that, but we can't tolerate hate speech. So there is a balance there that I think is important, and our community has a role in that. Thank you very much. I yield back.
Speaker 1
Thank you. I would like to recognize my friend from Florida, mister Pine.
Speaker 16
Well, thank you, mister chairman. For those who don't believe this sort of thing happens, I would tell you the story of a student who was a junior in college, wrote a paper, talking about liberal bias in the media and failed the class because of it. When the student went and said, what was wrong with my paper? Was it not well written? No.
No. No. It was fine written. Was it not properly sourced? No.
The sources were fine. Well, why did he fail? Or more accurately, why did I fail? The answer was, well, because you had the wrong political view. That happened to me in the mid-90s at Harvard.
So the notion that this doesn't happen is nonsense. It does, and that was 30 years ago. So I wanna talk about a story again about me. It's about today, and I'm actually gonna ask Mister Sykes if he thinks this is okay. I was invited to speak at Georgetown University.
Oh, no. Sorry. Not Georgetown. I apologize. I don't know.
I'm thinking about that. I was invited to speak at Catholic University just a few months ago by a student group who wanted me to come and speak about anti-Semitism. And I guess my office said, fine. The student group put it in, and the university said no. You can only have him come speak on antisemitism if you're willing to invite someone who will share the opposite perspective.
K? Seems a little weird. I guess the we like antisemitism crowd. It wasn't just me that this happened to. They and this group invited someone else who was gonna talk about, I guess, what had gone on on October 7.
They'd invited a military person who had the perspective that what happened on October 7 was bad. And then again, the university said no. No. You can only have this person speak if you're willing to present both sides. But somehow, when it came to liberal causes, the both sides argument went away.
So, mister Sykes, would you say that if a university wants to bring in a speaker to talk about antisemitism, that saying no. No. You can't do that if you don't present both sides. Is that honoring the First Amendment, or is it managing the narratives?
Speaker 5
Thanks for the question. Catholic University is not bound by the First Amendment, so they can create policies as they wish in general.
Speaker 16
Do they take money from the federal government for their students to be able to go there?
Speaker 5
I don't know. But I would say it's a bad idea. I think that how you were treated was not a great idea.
Speaker 16
It was how I was treated. I've got plenty of people who wanna hear me talk, some who don't, who get to hear me anyway. But, it's the students who missed out on the opportunity of hearing me speak. Is it fair to the students? Not about me.
Speaker 5
As I said, I don't think it's a constitutional issue, but there certainly is a free speech issue, and I think you're right that that's up to
Speaker 16
The federal government should fund institutions? We have a choice. Right? By the way, the notion that private institutions exist in this country is false. There are very few institutions in this country that could survive without money that comes from this building.
They want to be private. They can do it on their own. So do you believe that the federal government should give grants, whether it's to fund universities or provide student loan funding to students who wish to go to universities that engage in this sort of behavior? Is that something that we ought to be doing here?
Speaker 5
I think viewpoint diversity is important. I'm not gonna comment on Catholic universities' federal funding.
Speaker 16
Alright. So, mister Langover, I ask you. You know, in many instances, in cases, institutions and democrats have argued that under the First Amendment, nothing can be done when Jewish students face antisemitism that comes in the form of protected speech. Is that an accurate understanding of how institutions can and must balance civil rights laws with the First Amendment?
Speaker 3
Representative, this committee is right to be concerned about the arising antisemitism on campus, and colleges can and must protect Jewish students from threats, fighting words, severe and pervasive harassment. The types of activities that we saw go on at a lot of institutions across the country, they have the policies in place in order to be able to make this not happen. They have the ability to do it. We saw actually Dartmouth did it. Dartmouth did not allow the encampments to stay on.
They were taken down within
Speaker 3
And exactly. And so they have the policies to do it, and they should enforce those policies. They should absolutely not allow any student group, regardless of who they are, to be harassed, to be threatened, to be made to feel unsafe simply because they're Jewish. So I 100% agree that the universities should not allow that to happen, and they need to enforce law, you know, and make sure the students are punished for unlawful conduct.
Speaker 16
This is happening. It's a big deal. Unfortunately, I just filed 8476, which will solve this problem as it relates to antisemitism on our universities. I know it will solve it because I filed it in Florida. We passed it 7 years ago, and we solved the problem there.
Look forward to getting that bill marked up in this committee soon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Speaker 1
Thank you, and I would like to recognize the ranking member for the full committee, Mister Scott.
Speaker 17
Thank you, mister chairman. Mister Sykes, we've heard a lot about the politics of freedom of speech. Is there any democratic-led state that has anywhere passing laws that tell colleges and universities what topics they should be avoiding in classes?
Speaker 17
Any democratic-led states telling colleges and universities which classes they can or can't teach?
Speaker 17
Telling university administrators what deans they can or can't have on campus?
Speaker 17
Telling students who they can or can't invite on campus? No. On laws being passed in other states?
Speaker 5
Yes. We've challenged multiple laws, including I was just gonna comment to our friend from Florida, that in a challenge to the stop woke act, we address just this issue of both sides ism. And the way Florida has chosen to approach it under their classroom censorship law is not to require both sides ism, but to prevent it. And therefore, you cannot hold a debate about affirmative action in Florida classrooms if not for our lawsuit under that law, which blocked the law. But the Florida council in federal court said, under this law, you cannot hold a debate about affirmative action because the person advocating for affirmative action would be violating the law.
Speaker 17
So then all of those restrictions only occur in Republican states. Is that fair to say?
Speaker 5
In this current wave of classroom censorship laws, yes. We've seen them mostly from Republican administrations. Of course, I'd be remiss if I didn't note that the ACLU has also sued a lot of Democratic presidents and governors and legislatures as well over other issues.
Speaker 17
On other issues. Thank you. Mister Langoff, you mentioned Yale has a disproportionate number of Democrats as professors.
Speaker 3
I don't think Yale should be forced to hire professors, you know, period. Yale is a private institution. Yale has the ability to do it. But what Yale acknowledged in that zone survey was their own survey. They acknowledged there's a problem, and they acknowledged that we cannot do research and teaching and do science well if we don't have diversity of opinion.
And they're acknowledging that there isn't a diversity of opinion and that they need to address that. I'm glad.
Speaker 17
They're here. Mentioned the partisan divide. If people deny science, they're unlikely to get a job as a professor at a leading university. Isn't that right?
Speaker 3
Well, you know, obviously, different people have different opinions on what denying science is, but the fact is we know that there is a lack of viewpoint diversity on campus, and, yeah,
Speaker 3
Do not aware of anybody that denies climate change. There might be a debate over who.
Speaker 17
Republican elected official to try to get a Republican elected official to make a declarative statement that climate change is real. Mister Sykes, is there are challenges in free speech? What are the challenges we have to be looking at in terms of weaponizing immigration? Do immigrants have free speech rights under the First Amendment?
Speaker 5
It is unquestioned that those who are lawfully here have the full protections of the First Amendment.
Speaker 5
Well, as we've seen, you know, the immigration sweeps nationwide have led to human rights abuses, deaths, and the ACLU has been among the groups that have been pushing back against that. So the immigration campaigns are much broader than the universities. But just focusing on the university students who've been caught up in these issues because of the speech, because of their ideas, it is, as I said, among the gravest threats to academic freedom that we have seen, and the chilling effect on campuses has been dramatic.
Speaker 5
We've seen multiple attempts by the administration to withhold funding, to threaten to withhold funding, to sue universities, all in an attempt to get them into ideological line.
Speaker 11
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mister Lang Langonfer, in your testimony, you called for robust First Amendment protection and called upon Congress to pass legislation banning censorship. In Brandenburg versus Ohio, the Supreme Court held that freedoms of speech and press do not permit a state to forbid advocacy of the use of force or of law violations except where such advocacy is directed toward inciting or producing imminent lawless actions and is likely to incite or produce such actions. So, as you know, M pointed out, school officials sometimes limit free speech in the name of public safety and order. So, sir, in your opinion, how can Congress support free speech protection while also ensuring that colleges and universities have the resources necessary to address real threats?
Speaker 3
Thank you, representative. This is a real issue. We see, time and again, conservative and religious student groups trying to bring speakers to campus to have important conversations, and yet the universities fail to provide security, even if they allow the event to happen, which sometimes they don't. But even if they allow it to happen, what we see is mobs shutting down these important debates with violence, and the university officials standing by and letting it happen. In fact, we're getting ready to have a trial in July against the university, Binghamton University, when they tried to bring the college republicans tried to bring doctor Laffer to campus in 2019 to speak on tariffs.
A really important topic, tariffs. But yet the local college progressives and the local Antifa group showed up and disrupted. And within a minute of doctor Laffer taking the stage, the university escorted him off stage rather than shutting down the violent protesters. So we know they had plenty of university police on hand to stop this. They knew it was gonna happen.
The students said it was gonna happen, but they refused to do it. And so these students were not allowed to hear this imminent economist talk about a really important topic that touches every one of us. So this isn't just on controversial topics, like we've already talked about. It's even on economic issues, like tariffs. And so universities, you know, have a duty to protect students that are trying to bring important conversations to campus.
Speaker 11
Appreciate it. Thank you very much. Mister Horace, I've heard about some reports that some colleges and universities are restricting first amendment rights when it comes to affiliations with social organizations. Students should not feel disadvantaged or face institutional retaliation simply for exercising their freedom of association. This is a bipartisan issue that we need to work together on to resolve.
So can you describe the impacts beyond the campus that result from the restrictions on a student constitutional right to freedom of association? And what does this mean for the surrounding communities?
Speaker 4
I wanna give you an example. When we do these mass suspensions, not only is it interfering with their speech and association rights, it's actually discouraging students from reporting other bad behavior. Because if I turn myself in or others, and the entire community is shut down, that peer pressure is actually counter to the safety and health of our students. So again, young men have the opportunity to choose who they want to belong to, and they also have to learn if the group accepts them. That is a part of an intimate association.
We believe it's fundamental to the growth and development of young men. As I spoke to earlier, society should be aware of the challenges of young men in higher education, with lower graduation rates and higher suicide rates. The fraternity experience has been proven time and again to help on those two critical issues for young men. That's why we should not be getting in the way of the fraternity experience. We should be making it more accessible to all.
Speaker 11
I appreciate that. Thank you. And quickly, last question there, doctor McGurry. The foundation for individual rights and expression reported that the number of students whose self-censor is increasingly increasing, and along with the number of students who believe using violence to prevent speech is acceptable. So does this align with what you see when you conduct campus surveys through the campus freedom initiative?
Speaker 6
Yes. It does. We've conducted surveys in Ohio, in Virginia, in Arizona, and a few other institutions. And we consistently see high rates of self-censorship reported from students. They report self-censoring themselves in the classroom, in their assignments, in the dining halls.
As I said earlier, they are worried about how their peers will react if they find out that they hold certain views. They're, you know, this is a bipartisan issue, but we do find, as I also said earlier, that conservative students generally are much more prone to self-censorship. And as far as the intolerance goes, yes, we continue to see, you know, willingness to report professors for saying something offensive in the classroom is extremely high. Willingness to shout down speakers remains high. The students who say that they think that violence is sometimes or even always acceptable usually come in at over 10%.
So one in 10 students are willing to say that they think violence could.
Speaker 1
Thank you. I'd like to recognize my friend from California, mister Kiley.
Speaker 18
Thank you, Mr. Chair. You know, having been involved for a number of years now in these issues of freedom of speech on college campuses, I've always thought this is an incredibly important issue for our country for a couple reasons. Number one is that what happens on college campuses often spreads to the rest of society. Number two, when freedom of speech itself becomes subject to partisan dispute, that has, I think, grave consequences for democracy. I mean, the First Amendment is supposed to be the vehicle through which we hash out our differences.
It's not supposed to be, itself, you know, something that we have partisan disputes over. It's supposed to be a foundation for our other disagreements. So when you start to kind of shake that foundation, I think that it really inhibits our ability to have the sort of discourse and debate on which a healthy democracy depends. So I do think there's a place for the report cards that you see some organizations issue for legal action where there's clearly a cognizable harm to a student's rights, and even policymaking at the state and federal level to assure compliance with the First Amendment and other free speech requirements, as well as accountability. I think that maybe the most effective thing that we can do is to rebuild the culture of free speech, that has sort of run, you know, has sort of dissipated as some of these statistics very clearly illustrate.
I actually, mister Maguire, I noticed that your organization here has this sheet talking about, basically that idea, how to rebuild a culture of free expression, I think is pretty good. The first point here references the UChicago statement. When I was in the state legislature, we actually got the legislature to unanimously endorse the UChicago statement. You can believe that in California. I've worked on legislation here, which we incorporated into our broader bill that would incorporate teaching the First Amendment, its history, its purpose, as part of orientation on college campuses.
So, I wanted to give you a chance just to expound a little bit more on why you've chosen this angle of promoting a culture of free expression. And if there's a way we could actually start that earlier at the K-12 level to incorporate that more into civics and other teachings there, so that students arrive on campuses with an understanding of why free speech is an important principle.
Speaker 6
Thank you for the question. Yes. I entirely agree that the ultimate goal should be to build a culture of freedom of expression on campus. And then, as you said, you know, into our broader society, because what happens on campus doesn't stay on campus. We have a number of things in our gold standard that not only set policies but also help to start building that culture on campus.
We recommend that schools regularly hold either lecture series where different points of view are expressed or debates, ensure that there are centers on campus, and student groups that promote debate. We also think that students should begin learning about free expression in new student orientation, and we think that should continue to occur both within the curriculum and beyond the curriculum throughout their college careers. What we find is that most often, university administrations will respond to pressures to adopt certain policies, but they don't really fully invest themselves in committing to those policies. And so we wanna see leaders at these universities modeling respect for free expression and openness to intellectual diversity. And what we're ultimately looking for with our campus freedom initiative is for universities that are truly going to embrace free expression, become models for the nation on these issues.
I would also point to things like the civic centers that are being created. These create environments where, in some cases, like at the University of North Carolina, students actually live together in a dorm. They go to class together. They focus on things like civil dialogue. They learn how to disagree with one another.
Right? There's no ideological line that they're required to follow in these programs. It's about learning the skills of debate, the skills of citizenship that we need more and more people in this country to have. And I 100% agree that this needs to begin in K to 12 as well. Active focuses on higher education.
We don't really work in K to 12, but I'm a father myself. I have children in grade school. I have a daughter in high school. And I've seen myself already self-censorship taking place in the high schools. And we of course see students arriving on campus as freshmen already having adopted intolerant attitudes on various political issues.
And so that's work that colleges and universities need to do to correct the failings that we're seeing in the K to 12 system.
Speaker 18
Yeah. Thank you. I think that's the great work you're doing. We'd love to support these efforts however I can, and I think it's an issue that we can explore on our k twelve subcommittee as well, is how we can, you know, encourage the teaching of civics in a way that really gives students an understanding of why the First Amendment is so central, and why it's important to embrace freedom of speech as a principle even when you might not agree with the ideas being expressed. Thanks, everyone, for your testimony.
I yield back.
Speaker 1
Thank you. We'll now move toward closing remarks. I'd like to recognize Dr. Adams for her closing remarks.
Speaker 2
Thank you, mister chairman, and, again, thank you to the witnesses for testifying today. I'll close with one word, nuance. Today's conversation makes clear that the issues before us are not simple, and they should not be treated as such. Safeguarding the First Amendment while also upholding our obligations under civil rights law requires careful judgment, not political shortcuts. It requires consistency, not selective outrage.
If we are serious about protecting free expression, then we must defend it even when it's uncomfortable, even when it challenges our own views. And if we are equally serious about protecting students' civil rights, then we must ensure that no one is denied the opportunity to learn in an environment free from unlawful discrimination. Those responsibilities are not mutually exclusive, but they do demand restraint from us as lawmakers. The federal government, both Congress and the White House alike, should not be in the business of using its authority to pressure institutions into adopting or rejecting particular viewpoints, nor should we insert ourselves into complex fact-specific decisions better handled by educators, administrators, and
Speaker 2
courts. Our role is to uphold the constitution and ensure the law is followed, not to tilt the scales of debate. At the end of the day, a strong academic environment depends on both free inquiry and equal access to opportunity. Undermining either one weakens the entire system. And so as we move forward, I would urge my colleagues across the aisle to approach these issues with the seriousness they deserve, grounded in principle, guided by evidence, and applied consistently.
And, mister chairman, before I close, I do want to just remember or at least reiterate and remind folks that one of the witnesses in response to a question mentioned Texas A and M University and its attempts to open a journalism school dedicated to classic journalism. And I'd like to enter into the record an article from NBC News highlighting the $1,000,000 settlement that the school came to with the original dean the school had selected, Kathleen McElroy, a veteran journalist and an academic, when the school reduced their offer of tenure to her after conservative backlash. And I'd introduce into the record, Jim. Thank you very much, and I yield back. Thank you.
Speaker 1
Thank you so much. So this is a very, very important conversation to have at the least. And I'll always think about how our constitution started, and that was the word, three words, most powerful three words I think is for mankind, we the people. Because what our country is all about is having conversations, very hard, sometimes difficult conversations, but having the confidence in ourselves that we're gonna do that with respect. I remember seventh grade.
At the time I grew up in the seventh grade of South, I'd decided I was gonna go and join a demonstration in front of Florida State Theater with a famous students. My dad was a professor for 40 years, famous. And I went home to let him know I like to do this, thinking that he'll be excited, proud. But he asked me a question, had me thinking, and that was why? And for the first time, I had to sit down and really think through and explain to my dad why I wanted to do this.
And that was the way he approached basically my entire life. We didn't agree on everything, but he was more proud of me having the ability to think and to give a good firm answer to things that he wanted or wanted to hear from me. That's what college was. And I'll be honest with that, that was my community back in the early part of this century. It was all about gaining respect, overcoming a soft bigotry of low expectations by not having intellect.
And so they would go out and debate. The one of the biggest celebrations we had as a nation, as a community, was back in 1930 when our debate team from Black College beat UCLA in debate. That is what makes our country strong. And what we have today is kids coming out of college and getting higher degrees, being more intolerant and more hateful because they cannot think. And instead of having that debate, they pick up a stick and want to hit you with it.
That's not America. And so this is a very important conversation. And once we get our colleges and our educational systems back to what we are all about, helping us to have tough decisions and still respecting each other when it's all said and done is really what we have to come down to. So, I think we're leaving a dark chapter, one in which we went through COVID, and we saw the very worst when people put on masks for everything. And now we have people coming to colleges, intimidating, beating up people with masks on steel.
That has to come to an end, and it comes from us having this conversation like we're having today in which we're not gonna be tolerant of intolerance. We're gonna start teaching our kids how to think again, how to have these conversations. And it'd be different, but yet have that thing in common that keeps us good Americans. So I look forward to that. I'm thankful for this conversation.
I thank you for everybody, everything everybody's doing here and what we're all bringing to the plate to change our trajectory. I would like to thank the witnesses again for taking the time to testify before the subcommittee today. And without objections, there would be no further business. The subcommittee is now adjourned.
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