��֭����

FIRE saw a record number of attempts by students, faculty, and others to prevent those with whom they disagreed from speaking on campus in 2016. FIREhas tracked this worrying phenomenon—what we call “d�������Ա����ٲ��پ��DzԲ�”—in our comprehensive Disinvitation Database cataloguing such incidents since 2000.

FIRE logged 42 separate incidents this year in which speakers faced opposition to their presence on campus, our highest tally ever. This year’s number precisely doubles the 21 disinvitations we saw in 2015 and marks a nearly 24 percent jump over 2013, the year that held the previous disinvitation record at 34. By way of comparison to other recent years, FIREtallied 28 incidents from 2014, 20 from 2012, and 22 from 2011.

“The resurgence of disinvitation attempts following a year of decline in their prevalence is a disturbing development,” said Ari Cohn, director of ��֭����’s Individual Rights Defense Program. “The increasing unwillingness to allow anyone on campus to hear ideas with which one disagrees poses a grave risk to students’ intellectual development. Rather than seeking to banish controversial or offensive ideas from campus, students would be far better off if they confronted, grappled with, and rigorously debated the views that they find disagreeable.”

The database specifies whether the incident involved a completed disinvitation or disinvitation attempt, along with the school, speaker, event type, and whether the call for censorship came from the political left or right of the speaker.

While it’s hard to attribute the uptick to any one cause, we would be remiss not to note that 11 of the 42 disinvitations were for a single speaker: Breitbart editor and right-wing provocateur . His controversial “” traveled to colleges across the country this year and seemed to prompt a new report of attempted censorship in some form or another each week—sometimes daily. While some protests of his tour were , others were not and thus warranted inclusion in our database.

In the run up to commencement this spring—what FIREannually dubs “Disinvitation Season”—we monitored attempts to stop undeniably accomplished commencement speakers, including then-Speaker of the House at the University of Notre Dame, Senator Jeff Sessions at the , and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright at .

Commencement speaker disinvitations used to account for a majority of annual disinvitations, and while they are still high, so increasingly are other types of disinvitations. Among the highest profile incidents in 2016 was journalist and Manhattan Institute Senior Fellow Jason Riley’s disinvitation from Virginia Tech this spring. ( into the school’s internal email discussion of how to manage the controversy was telling.) And the award for most ironic (and condescendingly paternalistic) disinvitation goes to Williams College, whose president unilaterally disinvited writer John Derbyshire in February over fears his talk would upset black students. The twist? Derbyshire had been invited by Zach Wood, the black president of Williams’ “” speaker series, which seeks to broaden students’ intellectual horizons by bringing divisive opinions to campus for discussion and debate. Wood sat down with FIREearlier this year to talk about the experience:

View video

Echoing ��֭����’s long-held concerns, Ari pointed out this summer that “the growing trend of disinvitation attempts will make students and administrators increasingly reluctant to invite potentially controversial speakers in the first place, ultimately harming intellectual exploration and critical thinking on campus.” Indeed, the decline in the number of disinvitation attempts in previous years may be in part attributable to this effect.

For more on how disinvitations work and their impact on the campus climate, check out our in-depth Disinvitation Report and then keep up to date on the latest disinvitations in our database.

FIRE, a First Amendment charity, effectively and decisively defends the fundamental rights of tens of thousands of students and faculty members on our nation’s campuses while simultaneously reaching millions on and off campus through education, outreach, and college reform efforts.