It was very disheartening to see USC ranked a very mediocre # 136 out of 203 colleges and universities in this year’s college free speech rankings.
My alma mater JHU and other elite schools like Northwestern, Yale, Georgetown and Penn were among the bottom ten. But ranked last, as the least accommodating college or university for free speech overall, was Columbia.
Ranked # 1, as the most accommodating, was the University of Chicago. At least UChicago proves that an elite college, even one where liberals outnumber conservatives 4:1, can still embrace openness, tolerance for speakers representing a full spectrum of discourse and ideas, and the notion that campus is a safe zone for free thought and expression.
Maybe USC’s administration can over time learn some valuable lessons from their efforts and results.
A link to the full rankings: Free Speech Rankings
Colleges and universities are after all the very place and those years are in fact the most important time to embrace effective communication and free and open dialogue. Colleges and universities should truly be a safe zone for such discussions.
The University of Southern California should take this opportunity to try and change things proactively. USC should be clamoring for the opportunity to climb those ranks. This is at least my opinion. Both of my daughters attended USC, and it seems like things gradually and incrementally declined on this front during their time there. And that negative trend unfortunately continues thereafter. For the sake of those attending USC, starting this year and into the future, I, for one, would like to see it change. All of America’s colleges and universities should be striving to do better on these fronts.