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FIRE might have raised our score — but speech on campus still smells like smoke.

This year, Harvard accomplished the enviable feat of rising from last to 13th-to-last in the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression’s College Free Speech Rankings. The shift might seem like cause for celebration — but the threats to free speech on our campus loom large.

Yes, Harvard moved up from dead last — but flawed rankings can’t hide the chilling wind blowing against free speech. The University’s recent crackdowns and program suspensions, paired with a federal campaign to police campus speech and DEI, are narrowing the bounds of debate.

It is no secret FIRE’s methodology is imperfect. For one, the rankings are biased against large schools with more media attention — one metric used by FIRE is the absolute number of speakers shouted down on campus, for example. The rankings were also based in part on survey data with a relatively small sample size — in Harvard’s case, 411 for a school of about 24,000. Moreover, the rankings exclude so-called “warning” schools that “do not promise free speech rights, marking Harvard’s previous position at the bottom of the list as a bit of a misnomer.

Harvard’s speech climate rests on two pillars: student culture and University policy. For a time, Harvard undertook measures we applauded for their ability to improve Harvard’s speech climate. In light of those positive moves we called on students to cultivate an environment of respectful disagreement.

Now, much of the burden has shifted back to the University. Despite considering positive measures that we lauded in the past, like Harvard’s adoption of an institutional neutrality policy and support for the Chatham House Rule, the University has recently repeatedly directly opposed academic freedom and free speech on campus — from shutting down protests to dismissing faculty leaders at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies and suspending the Religion, Conflict, and Peace Initiative at Harvard Divinity School. There is work to be done on an institutional level.

But the problem is not just Harvard: Today, free speech on campuses like ours is under attack by a federal government that should supposedly be its guardian. The Trump administration has spent the past six months bullying universities like Harvard into restricting speech in seriously harmful ways — from threatening international students to smothering DEI programs. The government has cracked down on pro-Palestine speech and programming, pushed for restrictions on academic freedom, and all but ordered the shuttering of campus resources for marginalized groups.

When anti-free speech policies are pushed from the top down, positive change is all but impossible. Within our campus community, Harvard as an institution has to do its part — but federal government attacks only add fuel to the fire.

This staff editorial solely represents the majority view of The Crimson Editorial Board. It is the product of discussions at regular Editorial Board meetings. In order to ensure the impartiality of our journalism, Crimson editors who choose to opine and vote at these meetings are not involved in the reporting of articles on similar topics.

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