FIRE presents a two-part series about free speech and civil discourse at MIT on April 7
Program Associate William Harris: “It’s not about the idea or the content of the speech, but the right to free speech itself”
Vivian Hir–The Tech
On April 7, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) hosted a two-part series about free speech and civil discourse at MIT. Founded in 1999, FIRE is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that protects freedom of speech and expression on college campuses. FIRE’s programming includes litigation, campus outreach, advocacy, and education campaigns.
FIRE partnered with the MIT Open Discourse Society (MODS) to organize the event. In an email sent to The Tech, MODS President Spencer Sindhusen ’27 said that the purpose of inviting FIRE to present at MIT was to address questions, correct misconceptions about free speech rights, and encourage civil dialogue when discussing controversial issues.
“In today’s age, it’s critically important to bridge the widening gap between people of different worldviews and afford them equal opportunity to express those worldviews under appropriate, legal circumstances,” Sindhusen wrote.
According to FIRE’s 2025 College Free Speech Rankings list, MIT is ranked 164th out of 251 universities for free speech. The selection represented different types of U.S. institutions, from Ivy League schools to large public universities. In the report, 45% of 275 MIT students sampled reported having self-censored at least once or twice a month, and 73% said that shouting down a speaker to stop them from speaking is at least rarely acceptable. Harvard and Columbia received the worst ranking for free speech on the list. The rankings were determined by a composite score of 14 factors, including openness and self-censorship. Over 58,000 undergraduates from 258 universities took part in the 2025 survey.
The first part of FIRE’s event was a presentation conducted by Senior Program Counsel Haley Gluhanich about First Amendment rights on campus, followed by a workshop on how to foster and facilitate productive discussions about controversial topics. In the event, attendees had the opportunity to ask FIRE staff members about free speech on campus and other legal topics related to free speech.
In the presentation, Gluhanich went into detail about students’ First Amendment rights, highlighting the differences between protected and unprotected speech. She stated that, under the First Amendment, hate and offensive speech is protected speech because the definitions for hate speech vary from person to person and time to time.
“It’s really hard to define what hate speech is when every single person in this room would define it differently, so it’s really hard to come to a consensus,” Gluhanich said. “What may be deemed hateful now won’t be hateful in a few years, or what is hateful now wasn’t back then.”
Gluhanich clarified that, although hate speech is generally protected under the First Amendment, certain forms, such as true threats, incitement, fighting words, and discriminatory harassment, are not. A true threat is when a speaker expresses serious intent to commit an act of violence to an individual. Although colleges have policies banning such threats, Gluhanich argued that the issue is that these colleges have punished students for speech that doesn’t contain actual threats. “Sometimes, we see people who aren’t actually fearful, but they know that the school has to take the report seriously, so students will get in trouble for what’s not really a threat,” Gluhanich stated.
Gluhanich later discussed incitement, a form of unprotected speech that directly causes imminent lawless action. She underscored the importance of imminence in defining incitement, as speech that suggests lawless action but at a later, unspecified time would not be considered incitement. Similarly, speech that advocates for violence, but does not directly cause imminent lawless action, is not incitement, as in the Supreme Court case Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969).
Afterwards, Gluhanich outlined the definitions of discriminatory harassment, basing them on the rulings in Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education, a 1999 Supreme Court case where the court found a school liable under Title IX for a student’s sexual harassment because the school acted with "deliberate indifference.”
In the context of education, discriminatory harassment is targeted, unwelcome speech that not only discriminates based on a protected class but also is “so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive” that it has a significantly negative impact on the victim’s educational experience and denies the victim “equal access to the institutions’s resources and opportunities.”
Gluhanich emphasized that discriminatory harassment requires being severe and pervasive, as well as having a demonstrated negative effect on the individual. Examples of negative impact include a drop in academic performance, having to switch schools, or declining mental health. On the other hand, feelings of discomfort or a one-time incident are not sufficient claims for discriminatory harassment.
Although students have the right to protest, Gluhanich stated that protests should not involve illegal activity, such as vandalism, occupying buildings, blocking entrances, or assaulting people. Gluhanich also stressed that protests must adhere to the institution's time, place, and manner restrictions — viewpoint-neutral limitations on protest methods.
Using the 2024 pro-Palestinian encampments on college campuses as an example, Gluhanich said that a number of the encampments violated the time, place, manner restrictions because their universities did not allow overnight structures without further approval. If the university did not have a policy regarding overnight structures, however, Gluhanich said that it would not have the right to immediately update the policy on the day of prohibiting further encampments.
Gluhanich responded with mixed feelings toward policies that require prior approval. “If you know that the demonstration is going to have 300 people, prior approval makes sense,” she said. “But in most cases, you can’t necessarily control how things end up.” Protesters can spread information to others, causing the estimated number of attendees to be larger than expected.
Gluhanich also highlighted rules where a university requires protests to be submitted in advance. “But there’s also a whole bunch of nuances with that, like how many days in advance can they require this to be more advanced?” she asked. Finally, Gluhanich raised the problem of policies in which administrators had the final say over the approval of a protest. “It gives the administrator too much authority to say, ‘I just don’t approve it,’” Gluhanich said. FIRE believes that universities should not enforce content-based restrictions based on the views expressed in the protest.
Gluhanich concluded her presentation by discussing what can constitute academic freedom. Although academic freedom is distinct from freedom of speech, these ideas overlap. Academic freedom provides professors the right to determine how they want to teach course material in their class, which extends to controversial or offensive material related to class content. Professors can also speak about matters of public concern as individuals. For instance, a professor can express their political opinions on social media, so long as they are not speaking on behalf of their university.
Following the presentation, FIRE Program Associate William Harris facilitated a civil discourse discussion called “Let’s Talk.” Harris began the event with a quote from French philosopher Voltaire: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” Harris continued, “When we say we defend free speech, we’re nonpartisan. It’s not about the idea or the content of the speech, but the right to free speech itself.”
To facilitate conversations despite individual differences, Harris encouraged the audience to focus not on winning the argument, but on gaining mutual understanding and listening to one another. Harris shared that his experience working at FIRE with colleagues across the political spectrum has inspired him to “presume good will” instead of “finding a gotcha moment” when discussing politics. “We find that kind of intellectual diversity exciting, and we try to practice curiosity rather than shying away from it,” he said.
The civil discourse activity comprised four “heat levels” from 0 to 3; each level reflected an increase in difficulty and sensitivity. Groups of three to four people were formed, and each cohort was given five minutes to discuss each question, which started with identifying commonalities in the group (Level 0) and ended with whether racial jokes are acceptable in comedy (Level 3).
After its conclusion, attendees reflected on the civil discourse activity. One attendee shared that she found the conversations to be productive and interesting, in particular the level one discussion about whether the government should institute a carbon tax to reduce emissions. The Tech did not obtain the name of the attendee. She appreciated how the conversation highlighted points of agreement regarding the benefits of a carbon tax, while also identifying potential drawbacks.
Before the event ended, the FIRE speakers held a brief Q&A session. An attendee asked Gluhanich and Harris about their attitudes toward the future of freedom of speech in the country and on college campuses, given the recent deportations of international students like Rümeysa Öztürk. Gluhanich admitted that she was concerned about the current political climate, but was hopeful that FIRE’s work in educating people would help address these recent issues.
Regarding universities, Gluhanich conveyed optimism about protecting free speech. “A lot of schools have been working with us and our policy reform team to make their policies more protective of free speech,” she said. “We’ve established a lot of good relationships with general counsels, school presidents, and administrators.”
Harris added that FIRE is prepared to fight for protecting freedom of speech through public outreach efforts, litigation, and policy reform. “I feel optimistic because of the people I work with—it’s definitely a critical moment,” he said.