Brown ranked worst Ivy for free speech
Tied with Harvard, placing 135th out of 150 top universities
Brown is the worst Ivy for diversity of opinion, according to a ranking released this week.
Heterodox Academy ranked Brown last among Ivies for its “commitment to viewpoint diversity,” along with Harvard, placing 135th out of 150 of the nation’s top universities.
Reasons for Brown’s low ranking, according to Heterodox, include the Brown Daily Herald’s denouncement and removal of two op-ed columns from its website, the 2016 Jefferson Muzzle Award for censorship by students, the Democrat-leaning faculty (Langbert et al), and for being featured for “censorship culture” in a documentary by We the Internet.
Brown also scored low for not endorsing the Chicago Principles on free expression, infringing upon free speech as rated by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, and for not being a welcoming school for conservative and libertarian students, according to the Intercollegiate Studies Institute.
Two positive events include President Christina Paxson’s affirmation of Brown as a safe-space for freedom of expression and the events dedicated to promoting free speech and open dialogue.
The top two institutions ranked are UChicago and Purdue, and the top Ivy League school is Princeton. The lowest ranked two universities are Mizzou and the University of Oregon, Eugene.
The Heterodox Academy, established in 2015, is a group of professors concerned with viewpoint diversity and free inquiry.