Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression

Free speech is being tested in real time across AI systems, social platforms, and emerging technologies.

We’re hiring a Lead Counsel, Tech & Free Expression Policy to help shape how speech is protected and regulated in this fast-changing tech landscape.

If you’re a lawyer who cares about the First Amendment and the future of online expression, we encourage you to apply.

💼: https://www.fire.org/careers/lead-counsel-tech-and-free-expression-policy

What began with a box of confiscated materials presented to Congress became a federal system for deciding what Americans could read, see, and circulate.

Anthony Comstock helped build one of the most sweeping censorship regimes in American history, one that reached far beyond “obscenity” into ideas themselves.

Over time, courts rolled back many of the laws he helped shape, narrowing obscenity standards and expanding constitutional protections for private life and expression. But the underlying logic never fully disappeared.

Every era produces its own “comstockery," where speech is framed as harm, and suppression is framed as protection.

📝: https://expression.fire.org/p/how-anthony-comstock-became-americas

A new study finds that donations from faculty at top universities have become increasingly one-sided, with the range of opinion concentrated on the left.

In fact, the average faculty donor is only slightly less left-leaning than Senator Bernie Sanders.

Researchers analyzed campaign contribution data from faculty donors at 55 universities. Compared to the U.S. Congress, faculty donors appear tightly clustered on the left, with almost no conservative representation in the graph below.

Past surveys also find that professors with minority viewpoints increasingly self-censor due to fear of backlash from colleagues.

This raises concerns about campus climate. Universities can work to strengthen viewpoint diversity while preserving academic freedom by avoiding ideological screening, adopting institutional neutrality, and applying transparent rules that protect open inquiry.

If universities want graduates who can think for themselves, they must put viewpoint diversity and open inquiry at the forefront. ➡️ https://www.fire.org/news/new-fire-study-finds-narrowing-range-political-views-among-faculty-donors