(The Center Square) – Louisiana State made the top 50 of the 257 schools analyzed in the largest annual review of free speech for colleges and universities.
LSU earned a D letter grade and a score of 63. The only other school from the state ranked was Tulane (207th, 54, F).
FIRE, the acronym for Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, based the rankings on 68,000 students at 253 colleges and universities.
Claremont McKenna College, in Claremont, Calif., scored an 80 for a B-minus to lead the rankings. Purdue (76, C) and the University of Chicago (76, C) were next. On the other end, Northeastern (47, F), the University of Washington (44, F) and Indiana (44, F) were the bottom three.
LSU is up a remarkable 149 spots from a year earlier. The report says the jump coincides with an upgrade of its “Spotlight” rating from red light to yellow light, and the adoption of institutional neutrality.
Students perceive the campus positively in the categories of political tolerance and disruptive conduct. It does not score well in openness, the report saying that is indicative of “many hesitate to broach controversial subjects in class.”
Tulane’s disciplinary probe into seven students joining an off-campus immigration protest hurt the overall score. It has not adopted a commitment to institutional neutrality.
FIRE bills itself as “nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to defending and sustaining the individual rights of all Americans to free speech and free thought. These rights include freedom of speech, freedom of association, due process, legal equality, religious liberty, and sanctity of conscience – the most essential qualities of liberty.”
It works to produce the rankings with College Pulse, a “survey research and analytics company dedicated to understanding the attitudes, preferences, and behaviors of today’s college students.” It has custom “data-driven marketing and research solutions,” utilizing a panel of “850,000 college students and recent alumni from more than 1,500 two- and four-year colleges and universities in all 50 states.”
