Ep. 282: Breaking down our 2027 College Free Speech Rankings Harvard, institutional neutrality, how we determine the rankings, partisan censorship, how schools can improve their ranking, and more! Joining us to break it all down is @TheFIREorg's @NicoPerrino; vp of research Angela Erickson; chief researcher Sean Stevens; general counsel Ronnie London; and campus advocacy chief of staff @ConnorMurnane. Timestamps: 00:00 Intro 03:18 Learn about our inaugural Soapbox conference 04:02 Preorder Nico’s book Free Speech Generation 5:00 Check out FIRE’s 2027 College Free Speech rankings 06:05 Who are the top- and bottom-ranked schools? 09:27 What’s new with the Harvard evaluation? 13:08 How does FIRE choose which schools to rank? 13:46 What can universities do to improve their ranking? 15:54 What is institutional neutrality? 18:05 What exactly are students being asked about campus speech? 21:25 How does FIRE make sure defending free speech doesn’t inadvertently protect censorship in the classroom? 25:19 Is campus censorship coming more from the “right” or the “left”? 26:53 Did the University of Washington settlement involving Professor Stuart Reges affect its ranking? 30:45 What does it mean to pre-register our methodology? 31:35 Why did Claremont McKenna drop in the rankings? 33:07 What advice does FIRE have for students at low-ranked schools facing censorship? 36:47 Do politically homogeneous campuses make students more comfortable speaking freely? 40:26 Do low-ranked colleges tell FIRE how they are improving? 42:56 What can administrators do now to improve next year’s ranking? 43:50 Does FIRE account for turnover in university leadership? 45:47 What do the rankings reveal about different student demographic groups? 49:41 Does FIRE account for differences between types of institutions? 52:00 What’s up with MIT? 56:02 Should attacks on tenured professors carry more weight than actions against other faculty? 57:02 Who does FIRE contact when evaluating a university? 58:09 Are there regional patterns in the rankings? 58:57 Were there bigger ranking swings than usual this year? 01:00:44 Outro