The oldest institution of higher learning in the US is also the worst when it comes to freedom of speech, according to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) survey released this week.
The rankings showed Harvard University at zero, with the cumulative score actually standing at negative 10.69, FIRE’s director of polling and analytics Sean Stevens told the New York Post.
“I thought it would be pretty much impossible for a school to fall below zero, but they’ve had so many scholar sanctions,” Stevens said. Harvard disciplined seven out of nine professors and researchers over something they had said or written.
The university in Cambridge, Massachusetts – just north of Boston – was chartered in 1650 and is considered one of the most prestigious in North America. Harvard’s censorious climate has led more than 100 faculty to organize a Council on Academic Freedom earlier this year.
Stevens said he was not “totally surprised,” as Harvard has ranked “consistently near the bottom” since FIRE started doing the survey four years ago. It is the only school that FIRE currently ranks as “Abysmal.”
“An environment in which you can actually get in trouble for the ‘wrong’ academic opinion is not one that can be depended upon to produce reliable knowledge,” FIRE president and CEO Greg Lukianoff said, announcing the survey results.”It’s especially disturbing that some of the worst performing institutions are among America’s most influential schools, including Harvard, Georgetown, Northwestern and Dartmouth.”