However, during our interview, Professor Shields was cautious to read too much into disciplinary differences. Though philosophy professors assigned Thomson with her critics more often than their non-philosophy colleagues assigned critics for their materials, such professors were in the minority. The “norm was not to assign her with her critics,” Shields observes, remaining uncertain whether other questions in philosophy would be presented any fairer. The next step was determining the canonical texts of each debate, with decisions made based on citation counts and the researchers’ own familiarity with the scholarship. The researchers chose Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow (19,000 citations) on criminal justice, Edward Said’s Orientalism (90,000 citations) on Israel-Palestine, and Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion” (3,000 citations) on abortion.
Claremont Professors Find Lack of Ideological Diversity in University Syllabi
- Huntington is only assigned in 758 of the courses that assign Said—less than five percent of the time.
- After landing 73rd in the 2024 report following accusations of professors’ classroom speech being punished, CMC climbed to sixth place in the 2025 ranking.
- Finally, I want every single meeting related to my presidency to be open-doors.
- The other Claremont Colleges’ placements spanned between the two, with all but CMC earning an “F” grade.
Professors Jon Shields (CMC), Yuval Avnur (Scripps), and Stephanie Muravchik (CMC) have recently released a working paper analyzing diversity of thought in American college syllabi. FIRE’s ranking is based upon their speech code ratings of “Red,” “Yellow,” and “Green” for each school’s policies, indicating the degree to which each policy promotes expression through clarity, content neutrality, and other measures. Survey data is also obtained in partnership with College Pulse—a community-based survey platform—to accompany the speech code ratings in the ranking process. For the 2026 report, 68,000 students were surveyed from January 3 through June 5, 2025. CMC cannot claim to value open inquiry, academic freedom, and responsible leadership if it stands silent while those principles are challenged. This article is not a call for partisanship or an end to institutional neutrality.
Staying silent while the Trump Administration lays siege to higher education will not protect us. Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow—assigned 4,309 times in classrooms since 2012—argues that though formal racial discrimination ended with the Civil Rights Movement, the carceral system has replaced the old Jim Crow. Critics like James Forman Jr., John Pfaff, and Michael Fortner argue that Alexander fails to consider favorable Black attitudes to incarceration and overemphasizes the role of drug convictions in prison growth. Despite criticisms of FIRE’s methodology, the organization’s broad reach and coverage have been celebrated for providing insights upon which to build better speech climates at American colleges. On the policy front, CMC earns a Green Light, particularly for its adoption of the Chicago Principles and commitment to institutional neutrality as far back as 2018.
Instead, I’ll focus on small, tangible wins—like improving campus life with simple, practical changes that matter day to day.
In such a crisis, it becomes the obligation of the university as an institution to oppose such measures and actively to defend its interests and its values. Claremont McKenna College claimed first place in the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression’s 2026 Free Speech Rankings on Tuesday, while Pomona College clocked in at 247th of 257 colleges. The other Claremont Colleges’ placements spanned between the two, with all but CMC earning an “F” grade. I bring the perspective of an Italian-American who has lived abroad and seen how different ideas strengthen a community.
The CMC First-Year Class President (FYCP) sits on the Executive Board of ASCMC and serves as a representative of the Class of 2029. The FYCP manages a budget of $3,000, which they can use to plan events and foster community within their class and across CMC’s student body. CMC’s neutrality on recent government interference in higher education is a far cry from the responsible leadership we preach.
CMC Class of 2029: First-Year Class President Statements
Orientalism’s more commonly co-assigned texts are other works of critical theory, such as Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities, Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth, and Homi K. Bhabha’s The Location of Culture. Orientalism—cited 90,000 times and assigned in 16,000 courses—is more popular in classrooms than any “great book” of the Western canon. Author Edward Said, in discussing the ways Western experts (“Orientalists”) misrepresent the East, argues that Israel’s sovereignty can only be justified by embracing a xenophobic Western ideology.
FIRE’s 2026 Free Speech Rankings: How the Claremont Colleges Fared
Instead, they read texts that reaffirm Alexander’s thesis; the texts most frequently co-assigned with The New Jim Crow are Angela Davis’s Are Prisons Obsolete? I largely agree with the Kalven Report and generally support CMC’s institutional neutrality. It protects the academic freedom of students and faculty and facilitates the open and constructive dialogue that CMC has made so central to its identity. Since the paper’s release, critics have questioned whether “closed classrooms” are the norm.
FIRE’s 2026 Free Speech Rankings: How the Claremont Colleges Fared
For instance, Scripps is said to have experienced “0 controversies” in 2025, which neglects prolonged debate and controversy over the Motley’s closure in October 2024. Pomona is also said to have had “0 controversies,” despite the occupation of Carnegie Hall, also in October 2024. These incidents, if considered, could have dropped the colleges’ points in FIRE’s subcriteria. According to FIRE’s featured section on CMC, the college now ranks in the top ten in self-survey components for “Comfort Expressing Ideas,” “Openness,” and “Self-Censorship,” among others. To accomplish this, there’d be survey links at every function to get immediate feedback for improvement. I want to set up “office hours” or fireside chats at Beckett’s Fireplace on a weekly basis where I can talk individually with any of my classmates.
This year’s findings also noted that, nationally, 71% of students believe that it is acceptable to shout down a speaker and 53% believe the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is too sensitive for open discussion. CMC’s grade of 79.86 is the highest score of any of the colleges rated by FIRE. “This, combined with their performance on most of the survey components, deserves recognition,” says the report. Additionally, CMC’s “Administrative Support” score came in second nationwide, with a majority of CMC students agreeing that their administration places a high emphasis on protecting expression. A quick glance at CMC’s FAQ’s on Institutional Statements reveals that CMC does not issue institutional statements due to a 2023 Board of Trustees decision to adopt the principles highlighted in the University of Chicago’s Kalven Report.
We could talk about policy, the food at Collins, or even just do homework in silence. Finally, I want every single meeting related to my presidency to be open-doors. The words of my classmates matter, and I want them to not only be heard but also implemented in the impact I make for my class.
Through the “Open Syllabus Project” (OSP) database, the researchers had access to 27 million syllabi scraped from university websites dating back to 2008. “The surprising thing about the database is how little it’s been used,” Professor Shields noted in an interview with The Forum. With features tracking how often specific texts are assigned and paired with those expressing opposing views, the team could use this tool in an innovative way—to examine if syllabi fairly assigned both canonical texts and their criticisms. Second, I already know many of you—not just names, but your halls, teams, classes, interests, and backgrounds. From athletes to artists, scientists to lawyers, north quad to south quad, internationals to locals—I’ve listened to and laughed with you. Connecting with diverse people is my biggest joy, something I’ve done across 40 countries (Antarctica, I’m coming for you next).
All of these authors have provoked pushback, with their critics raising subtle complications and, other times, offering full-throated rejections. The question remains whether these critics are being taught and, if so, at what frequency. Moreover, CMC is said to have “deplatformed” commencement speaker Salman Rushdie as its singular controversy, when the motivation behind Rushdie’s withdrawal remains unknown. These discrepancies may suggest that FIRE strongly weighs subjective student experience, or at the very least, receives much of its information from the FIRE-College Pulse surveys.
I believe that what makes CMC different from other schools is our tight-knit community – I want to take that out of proportion. College needs to be more than a set of classes, preprofessional network-maxxing, and building up a resume for the future. The people we meet, the experiences that we share, and the connections that we make are absolutely vital if we want to succeed in the other aspects of school. I’m Weitao, the friendly, energetic, chalant FOB guy from China who greets you every time you see me. I’m running for FYCP because I can actually bring this class together—not just as a slogan, but as action. From time to time instances will arise in which the society, or segments of it, threaten the very mission of the university and its values of free inquiry.
FIRE’s 2026 Free Speech Rankings: How the Claremont Colleges Fared
Shields says that many higher-education courses are uncontroversial in their subject matters, and often taught without issue. But the measure of a liberal institution is not how it teaches inoffensive issues, but how it prepares its students to grapple with the deeply polarizing ones. Interestingly, https://traderoom.info/cmc-markets-a-wholly-reliable-brokerage/ when critics are assigned in syllabi regarding all three topics, the most commonly co-assigned materials are the mainstream canon.
- I largely agree with the Kalven Report and generally support CMC’s institutional neutrality.
- The researchers note that the department primarily responsible for teaching Thomas—philosophy, which accounts for 90 percent of the occurrences of Thomson’s work across syllabi—may play a role in fostering this openness.
- CMC’s neutrality on recent government interference in higher education is a far cry from the responsible leadership we preach.
- Orientalism’s more commonly co-assigned texts are other works of critical theory, such as Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities, Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth, and Homi K. Bhabha’s The Location of Culture.
- Philosophy is a “discipline whose pedagogical aims explicitly include exposing students to competing arguments,” the researchers state.
Increasing the rigor of debates in the humanities and social sciences might curb the drift towards STEM. By presenting more well-rounded syllabi, academics can change the perception that “we’re trying to push a particular political project onto the public,” Shield says. The researchers note that the department primarily responsible for teaching Thomas—philosophy, which accounts for 90 percent of the occurrences of Thomson’s work across syllabi—may play a role in fostering this openness.
CMC Class of 2029: First-Year Class President Statements
The three focus topics were selected for their disciplinary breadth—criminal justice draws on sociology and law, Israel-Palestine on political science and history, and abortion on philosophy. These issues have also been omnipresent during the research team’s teaching tenure. Criminal justice and the Israel-Palestine conflict have been the two most polarizing campus issues for the past decade, Shields observed, whereas abortion is the most enduring issue in the broader American culture wars. 166 of the 257 schools surveyed received an “F” for their speech climate, and only 11 schools received a speech climate grade of “C” or higher.
Among these principles are the belief that universities must commit to individual freedom, open inquiry, and serve as a forum for diverse ideas. The Kalven Committee argued that universities that did not maintain neutrality endangered these principles. Of all the opposing texts co-assigned with The New Jim Crow, Forman’s essay “Racial Critiques of Mass Incarceration” was the most common. However, Forman was assigned only 149 times in the 4,309 syllabi that include Alexander. Simply put, only three percent of students reading The New Jim Crow have also read its top critic.
As the semester ramps up and the Class of 2029 settles into college life, a familiar fleet of banners hang outside Appleby Hall. The First-Year Class President campaigns are in full swing, and six eager candidates are vying for the opportunity to represent the newest cohort of CMC students, promising events, food, community, and memories. Standing with our fellow institutions of higher education is not a declaration of partisanship. It is a reaffirmation of our principles, values, and unyielding dedication to academic freedom.
After landing 73rd in the 2024 report following accusations of professors’ classroom speech being punished, CMC climbed to sixth place in the 2025 ranking. As your FOB president—Funniest On Ballot, Freshest On Board, or Free Office Boba—you’ll get humor, energy, and inclusiveness. Even if you don’t rank me #1, I’ll always be here to hear you out—whether it’s ranting about classes, policies, dining hall food, or the meaning of life. With so many passions and perspectives at CMC, we deserve a leader who can bring us together, not divide us.