The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) yesterday published its second annual list of the "Twelve Worst Colleges for Free Speech." Tufts University was featured once again, this year coming in 10th. Two other Boston-area universities also made the list: Harvard in fourth place and Brandeis in 12th. The mission of FIRE is to "defend and sustain individual rights at America's colleges and universities." FIRE brings attention to free speech violations at colleges around the country and occasionally even uses its own legal resources to help students whose rights it believes are being violated.
During the 2006-2007 school year, The Primary Source printed two pieces that sparked an eruption of controversy around campus. One piece was a poem called "O Come All Ye Black Folk," which mocked affirmative action. The other was a satirical itinerary for Islamic Awareness Week, which said, among other criticisms, that the religion promoted the mistreatment of women and was generally intolerant.
FIRE scolded Tufts once again yesterday, writing that "rather than taking the opportunity to enter debate of such important issues, Tufts charged the paper for having 'targeted' black students and Muslims for 'embarrassment' and found the publication guilty of harassment. Tufts then refused to allow The Primary Source to print anonymous articles in the future and announced that funding for student groups should take into account the 'behavior' of the organization."
Tufts in fact held an open forum to discuss these issues. Moreover, Tufts overturned its ruling, and The Primary Source is now permitted to print anonymous articles.
The administration's handling of The Primary Source controversy was certainly dismal. But it's worth noting that the administration repealed the sanctions it imposed on The Primary Source. FIRE's explanation for why Tufts is a bad school for free speech mentions only this singular incident from five years ago.
The people who wrote The Primary Source pieces and the editors who chose to print them are long gone from the Tufts campus. The fact that a controversy like this hasn't surfaced since 2007 is a sign that students at Tufts feel free to speak their minds.
In fact, Tufts has seen no shortage of free speech over the last several semesters. Last fall, a current adjunct professor at Tufts University School of Medicine made comments regarding transgender people that many Tufts students - including us - found both offensive and incredibly idiotic. But the administration, despite condemning the professor's comments, affirmed his right to make them and resisted calls to terminate his relationship with the university.
That same semester, students occupied Ballou Hall to voice their concerns about the planned Social and Cultural Identities Program. Rather than sanctioning the students for their impertinence, Dean of Arts of Sciences Joanne Berger-Sweeney and University President Anthony Monaco negotiated with them, and the process of developing the program is more transparent because of that.
Last spring, a group of students gathered on the Academic Quad at the April Open House to talk to prospective students about what they perceived as an unhealthy racial climate on campus. Though clearly infuriated, the administration refrained from taking disciplinary measures.
Like every semester at Tufts, this one has seen its share of controversies - on race relations, on the Israeli-Palestine conflict, on women's rights. No one who attends Tufts could argue that students here don't feel free to express their opinions. Jumbos express their opinions far more often than average college students, and this is reflected in our student publications.
FIRE is correct that The Primary Source controversy was a low point in Tufts' history, and it rightly earned the university a great deal of negative publicity. But former University President Lawrence Bacow admitted at the time that the administration erred, and the administration has since abstained from wading into controversies that it should avoid. The fact that FIRE must dredge up a five-year-old controversy to support its claim that Tufts is a bad school for free speech only shows that the university is doing a fine job of protecting speech rights today.
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This article has been corrected since the original version was published. The correction was to note that the professor mentioned has had no recent affiliation with Tufts Medical Center.
