‘Something we're going to be looking at closer’: Chapman improves in rankings for freedom of speech

Photo Courtesy of Adobe Stock

Between protests for liberation in Gaza and a campus walkout over the scaling back of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, student activism has been common at Chapman in recent months. And now, it might be easier than before.

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) revised Chapman University’s speech code rating from red to yellow. But what has changed? According to Dean of Students Jerry Price, next to nothing.

“We have done nothing different,” Price told The Panther. “It turns out it wasn't our policy as much as the descriptive preamble language around it.” 

FIRE is a free speech nonprofit that has been monitoring students’ fundamental rights on college and university campuses since 1999. FIRE lawyers read through speech and expression policies and determine how well they abide by the First Amendment, assigning colleges a green, yellow or red rating.

“FIRE is not unfamiliar with us,” Price said. “I can't speak for them, but I think that they understood or believed that the score didn't reflect the actual climate on campus for free speech. So I think that's one of the reasons they were amenable to talking with us, because they felt like if the score doesn't reflect the reality of campus, then let's see if there's a way to clean up any misconceptions.”

A specific misconception that caused Chapman’s initial ranking to be in the red was that if students say something offensive, they are protected by free speech and will not be punished. Nonetheless, according to Price, faculty originally reserved the right to talk to individuals about how their actions affect others. 

However, FIRE representatives claimed this was an attempt to intimidate students away from free speech, and it has since been removed from Chapman’s free speech policy.

“To me, (Chapman’s policy) made a lot of sense in the context of our campus,” said Price. “But someone reading it cold might infer something different from it. They might infer restrictions that clearly we don't intend.”

Student expression has been ever-present at Chapman and at times limited like the C.A.R.E.S. Clothesline Project being restricted in the fall of 2024. 

“Right now, because of the conflicts going on, people associate free speech with letting people say whatever they want — which it is, but it's not only that,” said Price. “In a university, it also should be a sense of civic responsibility to (speak) in a way that's productive and civil. That's the part I think we want to try to be more effective at.”

Civil discourse will continue to be at the forefront of the conversation under the new presidency of Matt Parlow, who Price characterized as a supporter of free speech and free expression.

“How do we pull people together, discuss, and not just fight over (issues)?” said Price. “We haven't had a lot of luck with it lately because, in my assessment, there kind of seems to be three groups: people who adamantly oppose something, people who adamantly support something and a big swath in the middle that says, ‘I don't want to get in the middle of that, I don't want to pick a side, so I'm just going to back out of it.’”

The recent endowment of Vikki Katz as the Fletcher Jones Chair of Free Speech and The Or Initiative are measures the university has taken in order to improve freedom of speech, both to appeal to FIRE and to expand the freedoms available to students and faculty.

“We're not green, which we'd like to be, but one of the questions I had — is any school in California green?” Price said. “There's a lot of state legislation that we have to incorporate in our policies, that I don't think FIRE likes, so it might be very difficult to get to green.”

In the state of California, free speech on college campuses is protected by the U.S. Constitution and the California state constitution. These protections are further extended to students and student journalists at private, non-religious universities by The Leonard Law.

However, numerous universities across California have begun to impose stricter codes on campus activism in the wake of mass protests about the ongoing conflict in Gaza, which at times have resulted in violent confrontations between police units and protesters.

Out of FIRE’s list of 251 universities, no California college holds a green ranking. San Diego State University has the best-ranked California speech code grade, with a yellow rating at #71. 

When asked his opinion of FIRE, Price noted that the nature of FIRE’s mission and ranking system might be somewhat diluted by their perspective.

“I think people who are champions of free expression and see the value (of it) respect (FIRE) and respect their opinion, even if they don't always agree with it,” he said. “But I do think there are critics who feel like they don't know what it's like. They don't know what it's like to run a college campus.”