Free speech advocacy group ranks NC universities

An annual survey by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, or FIRE, ranks and scores hundreds of universities across the country based on free speech policies and student perception on the state of free expression on campus. North Carolina universities have topped the list in recent years, and the 2027 rankings are no different. 

But FIRE’s “climate grades” give off a different perception.

Five public North Carolina universities landed in the top 10% of 261 universities surveyed and top 20 overall — Appalachian State University, UNC-Greensboro, UNC-Charlotte, East Carolina University and North Carolina State University. 

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Appalachian State maintained its 2026 ranking at number eight, the best spot in the state, while UNC-Greensboro fell out of the top 10 from number six to 11. UNC-Charlotte rose eight spots to number 12, and NC State dropped by as many from 10 to 18. East Carolina came in at 15 this year, falling just one spot.

Also at the University of North Carolina System schools, UNC-Chapel Hill fell 12 spots to number 31, and North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University dropped seven places to number 58.

Duke University came on top out of North Carolina’s private universities with a ranking of 50, and Davidson College was not far behind at 63. But Wake Forest University trailed behind the pack at number 159, the only North Carolina institution to not make the top 25%, or even the top 50%, of the rankings. 

Methodology on ranking free speech

The survey is not intended to strictly measure adherence to the First Amendment, FIRE’s senior researcher Sean Stevens said, but to be a “sociological, psychological, broader assessment of the campus climate.”

FIRE assigns the rankings based on results from its “three bucket” approach:

• An undergraduate student survey with a set of core questions plus a handful regarding recent issues. 
• An evaluation of speech policies on campus often found in the student handbook or code of conduct. 
• Analysis of how universities handled any “speech controversies.” 

Speech controversies could be any instance of deplatforming or punishment for speech, like canceling a public event because of the speaker’s opinions or firing a professor for social media posts. No school is being knocked down in the rankings simply because of public outrage over a speaker, student or professor’s speech, only if that speech is penalized by the university after the fact, Stevens said.

“The punishment (in the rankings) can be mitigated by strong statements in support of freedom of speech, open inquiry and why they’re essential to the functioning of a university,” Stevens said.

“In the absence of censorship or punishment, they can earn bonus points for those strong statements in response to, like, people calling for an event to be canceled and if you give a good response preemptively.”

But the rankings only tell part of the story. Despite the high placements, the state’s five best universities for free speech still only received “climate grades” of a C. 

FIRE gives national higher education overall a D-minus based on the average, so North Carolina colleges still largely exceed other schools nationwide. The top-ranked institution of 2027, University of Chicago, still only received a grade of B minus. 

This low ceiling indicates the pervasive free-speech issues that plague higher education, FIRE says in its report. President of the UNC System Peter Hans told Carolina Public Press the organization is “a tough grader,” but he welcomes the feedback.

“FIRE is an advocacy group for free speech, and so they want to push,” Hans said.

“And if you’re handing out a lot of A’s, I don’t know. You know, it’s kind of the nature of nonprofits, right? If your reason for being is largely addressed, it’s very difficult to raise money to keep your nonprofit in business and everyone employed at the nonprofit. I’m not taking a shot at FIRE. I’m just observing and acknowledging really just organizational behavior in that realm. So I think they want to push, and we welcome the push of free speech — bedrock not only of American society but of what a university campus should be.”

FIRE, originally the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, was founded in 1999 on bipartisan principles by an academic duo from opposite sides of the aisle, though it once had the reputation of primarily protecting conservative voices on liberal campuses. 

It expanded beyond issues in education in 2022, but continues to advocate for academics and students of ranging ideologies. Since then, it has supported students and faculty in their right to speak on all sides of controversial issues like the Israel-Hamas war and the aftermath of the killing of Charlie Kirk.

‘Success story’ for free speech

Despite a number of free speech controversies in recent years, UNC System schools often rank high on FIRE’s annual list, particularly since requiring its institutions to explicitly adhere to institutional neutrality — a directive from the state legislature — and adopt the Chicago Statement for Free Speech.

The UNC System has also released its own reports on campus free speech and expression for nearly 10 academic years in a row. Past surveys found that students were “policing” other students’ speech, or that was the perception, Hans said. But he feels that the climate has improved since, and FIRE agrees, calling UNC-Chapel Hill in particular a “success story.”

The 2027 list is Appalachian State’s second year in a row at number eight. Jamie Parson and Jeff Cathey are Appalachian State’s Free Speech Responsible Officers, a position the UNC System employs at each of its universities. That alone is one reason why Parson believes the UNC System tends to rank well overall. The position gives her and Cathey the ability to connect with students over ideas of what free expression means and how it can be best protected, she told CPP. 

The institutional neutrality requirement for ranking free speech has also been helpful, particularly when helping students facilitate demonstrations on campus, Cathey said. Because it means universities should not be commenting on political issues of the day, it’s not up to staff to tell students what sort of protest can or can’t take place. 

“We’ve successfully tended to just simply lean into getting to, ‘How do we help this happen?’ I think that’s our general mindset, and trying to use our practices and our policies to help,” he said.

“I think the truth is that institutional neutrality law has actually, in a way, been helpful in that because from a neutrality standpoint, it means it doesn’t really matter what the topic is. It’s, ‘How do we help you do what you’re wanting to do?’”

Parson and Cathey think the student body also has a good relationship with campus police, which they feel sets Appalachian State apart. That means students often notify university officials in advance of demonstrations because they trust officers’ presence will make them safer, Cathey said.

‘Mushy middle’

Of the North Carolina campuses surveyed, Wake Forest received the lowest ranking for free speech at 159 and was the only university in the state with a climate grade of F, although its placement did increase by 27 spots from last year. 

Wake Forest is in what Stevens calls the “mushy middle” of the list. 

FIRE recommended Wake Forest adopt the Chicago Statement and institutional neutrality to improve its score and receive a green light rating, similar recommendations FIRE gave the university last year. Not doing so hurts its score, as well as a lingering speech controversy from 2024 that will no longer be factored in next year, Stevens said. 

Wake Forest improved by 114 places in one of the six components of the survey, “Comfort Expressing Ideas.” This indicates students feel increasingly comfortable sharing views on controversial topics than they have in the past, FIRE said, which explains its climb in the overall rankings. The university did not respond to CPP’s requests for comment at the time of publication.

Despite ranking in the top 50, Duke received a climate grade of a 66.8, or a D plus. But Stevens told universities in Duke’s position to take heart — a perfect score is nearly impossible, purely due to the nature of the survey. Universities should of course aim to increase their score by adopting the policies FIRE recommends and refraining from speech controversies, but a great score isn’t limited to an A plus, he said.

“If we graded on a curve, it probably would look a little better for some people,” Stevens said.

“I think all schools still have work, even the ones that do the best. As the person who’s knee-deep in this, I could say, honestly, no one’s going to get 100. There’s no way to get 100. All it takes is one student not giving you perfect marks on the survey, and you’re basically not getting 100 now. So I think the true best score is probably like 85 to 90, low 90s, something like that. So when you start approaching that, you’re doing a good job.”

The state of higher ed

Despite improvements at many universities and the highest average grade in the seven years of the survey, 61.36%, FIRE’s report said the “overall state of affairs for free speech on American college and university campuses remains very concerning.”

But there’s indicators that say the industry is moving in the right direction, Stevens said. The hope is that more schools will continue to adopt institutional neutrality and the Chicago Statement and refrain from speech controversies.

“We have the most schools that have above a ‘passing grade’ I’ve ever had,” Stevens said.

“If you actually get really deep down into it — and I know this might be cheating a little bit, because we’re counting schools that maybe improved by .01 of a point — but almost 200 schools improved their score over last year. So I think there’s reasons for cautious, tempered optimism.”

Educators can sometimes think it is only their job to teach the content to students, Parson said, but it’s also about “developing the human.” Emphasizing the importance of free expression and its vitality to civic life is, for her, just as necessary.

“I feel like part of our role is to develop respectable, engaged civic leaders and help them in their leadership journey and understanding of civic literacy,” Parson said. 

“How to tactfully disagree with a colleague, how to disagree with somebody that you meet on the street that you don’t even know and how to be productive humans in that way.

“I think that’s a really important component of this area of higher education when you’re bringing together so many different people from different backgrounds, different socioeconomic statuses, different upbringings in their education, to bring them all into a space and then to have these kind of conversations. This is the richness of higher education, in my opinion.”

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