(Excerpts from Higher Ed News)

• A new report offers a road map for how campus leaders can create a culture of free expression, write former Vermont governor Jim Douglas and former Washington governor Chris Gregoire.
• Controversy and turmoil over academic freedom and free expression, the traditional bedrocks of higher education, have intensified in recent years. Students and faculty self-censor. Speaker invitations are rescinded. Faculty members’ academic freedom in teaching, research and extramural activities is being challenged.
• American higher education has historically been esteemed for its civic mission of teaching each generation how to engage in the give-and-take of robust civic argument over difficult and divisive issues.
• In response to campus free expression controversies, we have seen an increasing number of lawmakers seek to interfere with campus governance through legislative or executive action. In the 2022 legislative sessions, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures’ bill tracker, bills touching on campus free expression have already been introduced in 19 states.
• That is why we asked the Bipartisan Policy Center, which usually focuses on Capitol Hill and statehouses, to turn its attention to college campuses and recruit a task force of academic leaders to address these issues from the inside out.
• The BPC Academic Leaders Task Force on Campus Free Expression is comprised of a diverse range of academic and civic leaders with distinguished records of engaging free expression controversies, including a recent college graduate as well as presidents and academic leaders who serve or have served at a wide range of higher education institutions.
• Meeting frequently and virtually over the course of a year, the task force discussed articles, surveys and reports on free expression issues and heard from a panel of students. The result is a unanimous report (a rarity for group deliberations like this) written to be a strategic guide for campus leaders, “Campus Free Expression: A New Roadmap.”
• One focus for the task force was understanding why fostering a culture of free expression has become increasingly difficult as Generation Z has arrived on campuses.
• This generation has grown up in increasingly homogeneous neighborhoods and been raised by parents who actively curate their experiences, with the result that many students arrive on increasingly diverse campuses with little experience relating to those whose socioeconomic backgrounds, news sources, political views and race differ from their own.
• Social media and national polarization make it harder to have thoughtful campus conversations across differences.