McNeese State University in Lake Charles was the only university in Louisiana to receive the highest rating possible from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression for efforts to protect students’ free speech.
McNeese State was the only campus in the state to receive a “green-light” ranking from FIRE’s 2024 Spotlight on Speech Codes report. A green-light ranking means the school has no written policies that pose a serious threat to students’ First Amendment protections.
FIRE is a nonpartisan, nonprofit group that regularly issues warnings to universities or files lawsuits against them to ensure they comply with free-speech rights.
“Knowing our students are not stifled by antiquated and unfair practices that limit their ability to exercise free speech is how we show firsthand that McNeese is a student-centric institution,” Dr. Kedrick Nicholas, McNeese’s dean of student affairs, told the Louisiana Record in an email. “We will continue to evolve and adapt to what our students need to not have any of their rights hindered."
Nicholas said the university is extremely proud of its green-light designation in the 2024 report.
“... We make intentional efforts to showcase a campus environment that allows our students to thrive,” he said. “We strive to establish our protocols with the students first in mind.”
Four Louisiana campuses – Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge; Louisiana Tech University; University of Louisiana, Monroe, and the University of Louisiana, Lafayette – received red-light designations, according to the report. This means that at least one of their policies “clearly and substantially” limits free speech, according to FIRE.
And six universities in the state received yellow-light rankings, meaning that the schools have put in place policies that are either vague or restrict certain categories of free speech. These six campuses are Grambling State, Nicholls State, Northwestern State University, Southern Louisiana University, Tulane University and the University of New Orleans.
“FIRE found that 85% of schools (nationwide) have at least one policy that could be used to improperly restrict students’ freedom of expression,” FIRE spokesman Alex Griswold told the Record in an email.
The 2024 Spotlight on Speech Codes report examined policies at 489 U.S. colleges and universities. For more than 10 years, the annual report showed improvements in free-speech policies at American campuses, but the 2024 ranking shows a rise in the number of universities with harsh free-speech restrictions for the second year in a row.
“This is not an anomaly: Free speech in higher education is getting worse,” Laura Beltz, FIRE’s director of policy reform, said in a prepared statement. “America’s top colleges are increasingly turning to censorship and terrible policies to police their students’ ability to speak freely.”
The Israel-Hamas war has led several prominent universities, including Yale and Stanford, to review their speech policies based on the proposition that universities might need punish speech that many members of Congress argue could “promote genocide,” according to FIRE, which sees such genocide exceptions as opening the door to more limits on campus speech.
In another case, pro-choice students who criticized the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling overturning Roe v. Wade were investigated for “harassment.” the report states.
FIRE also works with campuses to develop policies that target actual harassment without violating students’ and others’ First Amendment Rights, according to the 2024 report.