WashU ranked 72nd out of 257 colleges in the 2026 Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) College Free Speech Rankings survey, with an overall “D- speech climate grade.”

Amid staff layoffs and cuts to the University’s budget, Student Life spoke to a few faculty members about how comfortable they are speaking about administrative decisions. We reached out to seven professors of varying titles and of the three professors who agreed to interview, all were tenured.

Amidst these circumstances, Student Life, alongside 54 other student news organizations, signed on to an amicus brief in a lawsuit filed by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, the Stanford Daily, and two other individuals.

Chancellor Andrew D. Martin met virtually with White House representatives on Friday afternoon to discuss President Trump’s higher education compact, which asks universities to commit to a range of policy changes in exchange for preferential access to federal funding, per Vice Chancellor of Marketing and Communications Julie Flory. 

WashU hosted a fireside chat with New York Times columnist David French in which he discussed the current state of free speech and the First Amendment both in the United States and on college campuses, Sept. 12.

Speak passionately, debate vehemently, but never resort to silencing with blood what can be discussed with words. WashU students don’t need more echo chambers. We need experience conducting dignified conversations.

We ask that all students and members of the WashU community, regardless of their political affiliations, be willing to protect everyone’s inalienable rights, whether that be through writing letters to the WashU administration or standing up for peers who are being threatened and targeted. We also urge the University administration to clearly and transparently state the actions it intends to take if a WashU international student’s visa or green card is revoked without the University’s consultation, and if federal agents attempt to detain a student on campus grounds.

If we keep spreading the narrative that WashU is a place of suppression of expression, then yes, it will be a space of uncomfortable silence. We, the student body, have both passively and actively created that perceived reality for ourselves.

WashU has dropped to 187 out of 251 colleges in College Pulse’s 2025 free speech rankings for the 2023-24 academic year. The University, which previously ranked 135 out of 248, received a “slightly below average speech climate,” with especially poor grades in administrative support (198th), self-censorship (211th), and comfort expressing ideas (221st).

For many WashU community members, the defining political issue on campus in the past year has been the Israel-Hamas war that began on Oct. 7.