United States college students warned Congress on Tuesday that free speech is being threatened across the country.

The testimony is in response to campus violence against controversial speakers, and “free speech zones” on at least one campus. Free speech zones are areas designated for protest on some campuses.

Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Zach Wood, a student at Williams College in Massachusetts, said he has seen “considerable backlash in addition to administrative obstacles” since becoming president of a group called Uncomfortable Learning. That group invites controversial guests to speak on campus.

He said he fears that students at many colleges are only hearing a single liberal opinion on many issues.



Isaac Smith, a former student at Ohio University, spoke of a friend who was threatened with arrest for gathering signatures outside of the school’s designated “free speech zone.”

“There have been multiple cases across the country where students have been prevented from distributing copies of the United States Constitution … outside of their schools’ misleadingly labeled ‘free speech zones,’" Smith said. “Taken together, we know that administrators nationwide are stifling free speech.”

Disagreements on speakers

The hearing comes after several high-profile incidents on college campuses across the country in which invited speakers were blocked from speaking by administrators or had their events interrupted by violent protesters.

The most recent incident came in April when the University of California-Berkeley canceled preemptively a scheduled speaking event by conservative commentator Ann Coulter, saying the school couldn't control any violence around Coulter.

Richard Cohen, president of the advocacy group Southern Poverty Law Center, told senators he has “sympathy for the educators’ impulse to protect,” and encouraged administrators to teach their students to “counter speech with speech.”

“They recognize that harm does not only come from physical violence, that trauma and terror can hurt as much as guns and fists,” he said.

A month before the Coulter incident, a group of about 200 students at Vermont's Middlebury College shouted down conservative author Charles Murray, refusing to let him speak. As Murray tried to leave campus, protesters jumped on his car and assaulted a professor who accompanied him.

Cohen’s organization has labeled Murray a “white nationalist,” based on his research into a potential link between race and intelligence. He told Senators on Tuesday that students and universities “should not give racists an audience.”

White nationalist activity

According to Cohen, the recent bouts of violence come “against a backdrop of increased white nationalist activity” on college campuses, and so, he says, “it comes as little surprise that we have seen a strong backlash among students.”

“Since the spring of 2016, we have documented approximately 250 incidents — on more than 150 campuses — in which racist flyers were distributed. Nearly 200 of these incidents occurred after the November election,” he said.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, chairman of the judiciary committee, said he believes free speech is being “sacrificed at the altar of political correctness.”

“Many administrators believe that students should be shielded from hate speech, whatever that is, as an exception to the First Amendment,” he said. “Unfortunately, this censorship is no different from any other examples in history, when speech that authorities deemed to be heretical has been suppressed based on its content.”

Grassley said he is concerned school administrators will “take the easy route of giving in to student pressure to restrict debate,” but he said he was encouraged by schools like the University of Chicago, which recently adopted a policy to prohibit administrators from suppressing speech on campus that some find offensive or immoral.

“It calls for counter-speech rather than suppression by people who disagree with speech,” said Grassley.

VOA's Bruce Alpert contributed to this report.

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The Trump administration is opening new investigations into allegations of antisemitism at five U.S. universities including Columbia and the University of California, Berkeley, the Education Department announced Monday.

It's part of President Donald Trump's promise to take a tougher stance against campus antisemitism and deal out harsher penalties than the Biden administration, which settled a flurry of cases with universities in its final weeks. It comes the same day the Justice Department announced a new task force to root out antisemitism on college campuses.

In an order signed last week, Trump called for aggressive action to fight anti-Jewish bias on campuses, including the deportation of foreign students who have participated in pro-Palestinian protests.

Along with Columbia and Berkeley, the department is now investigating the University of Minnesota, Northwestern University and Portland State University. The cases were opened using the department's power to launch its own civil rights reviews, unlike the majority of investigations, which stem from complaints.

Messages seeking comment were left with all five universities.
A statement from the Education Department criticized colleges for tolerating antisemitism after Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel and a wave of pro-Palestinian protests that followed. It also criticized the Biden administration for negotiating "toothless" resolutions that failed to hold schools accountable.

"Today, the Department is putting universities, colleges, and K-12 schools on notice: this administration will not tolerate continued institutional indifference to the wellbeing of Jewish students on American campuses," said Craig Trainor, the agency's acting assistant secretary for civil rights.

The department didn't provide details about the inquiries or how it decided which schools are being targeted. Presidents of Columbia and Northwestern were among those called to testify on Capitol Hill last year as Republicans sought accountability for allegations of antisemitism. The hearings contributed to the resignation of multiple university presidents, including Columbia's Minouche Shafik.

An October report from House Republicans accused Columbia of failing to punish pro-Palestinian students who took over a campus building, and it called Northwestern's negotiations with student protesters a "stunning capitulation."

House Republicans applauded the new investigations. Representative Tim Walberg, chair of the Education and Workforce Committee, said he was "glad that we finally have an administration who is taking action to protect Jewish students."

Trump's order also calls for a full review of antisemitism complaints filed with the Education Department since Oct. 7, 2023, including pending and resolved cases from the Biden administration. It encourages the Justice Department to take action to enforce civil rights laws.

Last week's order drew backlash from civil rights groups who said it violated First Amendment rights that protect political speech.

The new task force announced Monday includes the Justice and Education departments along with Health and Human Services.

"The Department takes seriously our responsibility to eradicate this hatred wherever it is found," said Leo Terrell, assistant attorney general for civil rights. "The Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism is the first step in giving life to President Trump's renewed commitment to ending anti-Semitism in our schools."

The Times of India breaks down the most popular subjects for international students to study in the U.S.

STEM and business lead the pack. Read the full story here. (January 2025)

U.S. News & World report addresses some of the misconceptions about U.S. colleges and universities, including the difficulty of getting a visa.

Read the full story here. (January 2025)

US News & World Report details the three top factors in foreign students' decision to study in the U.S. They include research opportunities and the reputation of U.S. degrees. Read the full story here. (December 2024)