Schooling the First Amendment

Clashes between student protesters and campus speakers have dominated the news media in recent years. On one side there are speakers, politicians, and pundits accusing campuses and students of being unwilling to hear speech that they disagree with or find offensive. The underlying concern of people with this opinion is that instances of disinviting or shouting down speakers detracts from important educational opportunities and is a  major threat to rights set out in the First Amendment. On the other side, many administrators and student leaders are intent on creating environments that are inclusive, safe, and consistent with the educational mission of the university, for all students. In efforts to act accordingly, the actions campuses have taken to insure safety and inclusivity are often interpreted as stifling the free speech rights of speakers.

Given these tensions, we wondered: Is free speech really in crisis on college campuses? This project set out to take a deeper dive into the topic by collecting and following the data. Starting from the 2015 academic year, we constructed a database of scheduled campus speaking engagements that prompted student protests.  

We then took the data and spatially arranged it to help us answer some of the most pressing questions surrounding this debate. We encourage you to use the following maps to explore the topic and decide for yourself. Click on the different questions on the left hand side of the screen. You can also interact with the maps by clicking the map icons to learn more information.