(The Center Square) — Both Louisiana State University and Tulane graded near the bottom in the latest college free speech rankings.
LSU finished 199th out of 251 colleges and universities with an overall uninhibited expression score of just over 39 out of 100. Tulane ranked 217th with an overall score of around 36.
Of the categories considered in the , LSU scored worst at 232nd in the openness ranking, which is a measure of students’ ability to have difficult conversations on campus. Tulane’s was tolerance for controversial speakers was ranked 219th.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, or FIRE, releases the rankings every year based on student polls, which had over 58,000 responses this year and administration reaction to open dialogue and protests on campus.
An anonymous quote from an LSU student in the class of 2026 said, “Sometimes I feel that in order to receive a good grade on writing assignments I must agree with my professor’s point of view.”
The report was conducted at a time when protest over the Israel-Hamas war was put at the forefront of campus speech concerns nationally. Some of the lowest ranked schools, like the University of Southern California, University of Texas and Columbia had major pro-Palestinian protests on campus that led to arrests.
An anonymous student from the Tulane class of 2024 said “I do not feel I can express any pro-Palestine sentiment on campus as I would get in trouble with the school.”
Despite the pushback on some liberal viewpoints in quotes from students at both schools, they also cite a liberal majority viewpoint, showing that both sides feel the colleges provide a harsh political culture.
Some of the highest rated liberal colleges ranked the lowest on this poll, including Harvard, Columbia and New York University who filled the bottom three spots.
Harvard placed last out of 251 universities for the second consecutive year. Two other Ivy League schools were in the top five, Columbia and Penn.
In contrast, many Southeastern colleges and universities scored in the top 10 for free speech such as the University of Virginia, which finished first, Florida State, the University of North Carolina-Charlotte and Mississippi State University.
Louisiana’s two colleges surveyed both ranked the lowest regionally.
Still, students considered very conservative on the survey felt their voices are most oppressed. This category reported self-censoring most often, with 34% saying they do so “very” or “fairly” often.
Somewhat conservative students also reported self-censoring “very” or “fairly” often at a high rate, 24% percent, as did 22% of ‘slightly conservative’ students.
In contrast, only 15% of very liberal students reported self-censoring “very” or “fairly” often. Somewhat liberal students came in around 12%, ‘slightly liberal’ students voted at 13%, and 17% of ‘moderate’ students reported the same self-censoring habits.
Overall, every political ideology on campus finds it difficult to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on campus, with 55% of students voting so. This is a record high for any issue since the rankings began.
The only free speech positive trend nationally for the survey was the belief by students that they can’t express their opinion on a subject because of how other students, a professor or the administration would respond. That number is at 17%, down from last year when this percentage was 20% and in 2022 when it was 22%.
