5 times free speech prevailed in higher ed in 2025

The radical left has quelled conservative students’ free speech on college campuses for decades. But in 2025, conservatives stood up for their First Amendment rights. 

Here are five times free speech prevailed this year in higher education: 

1. Tomato thrown at Charlie Kirk memorial, police officer swiftly intervenes

Multiple people threw tomatoes at a memorial honoring slain Turning Point USA Founder Charlie Kirk, who was a champion for free speech and open discourse. 

One protester in particular lobbed a tomato at the framed memorial. The tomato splattered pulp on the memorial itself and a TPUSA member’s clothes. A campus police officer, who was standing nearby, moved the protester away and protected the memorial. 

2. UMich commits $50M to ‘dialogue’ center amid violent rhetoric from faculty celebrating Kirk killing

Despite the fact that faculty celebrated Kirk’s murder, The University of Michigan-Ann Arbor made the decision to allocate $50 million to initiate a center dedicated to promoting civil dialogue, called the Institute for Civil Discourse. 

“Whereas many institutions respond to offensive comments with short-term personnel actions, we will instead invest $50 million to accelerate the establishment of a permanent University of Michigan center dedicated to diversity of thought and civil discourse,” said University President Domenico Grasso. 

Grasso also stressed that it was “profoundly troubling” that Kirk was assassinated on a university campus, where rhetoric and dialogue should prevail. 

3. Protesters at Oakland University Charlie Kirk vigil overpowered by ‘USA’ chants

A free speech morale boost was secured at Oakland University during a vigil for the late Kirk, when attendees overpowered disruptive protesters with chants of “USA.”

The protesters had disregarded calls for civility and confronted the vigil attendees. They then began chanting “no more hate,” but were overpowered and drowned out by waves of “USA” chants. 

4. University of Oregon ordered to cover legal fees after settling First Amendment lawsuit 

In another free speech win fought on the litigation battlefield, the University of Oregon was ordered by a U.S. district judge to pay an estimated $191,000 to cover the costs of legal expenses incurred during a First Amendment lawsuit. 

Portland State University professor Bruce Gilley had filed the lawsuit in Aug. 2022 after he was blocked on Twitter by the @UOEquity account for replying to a post with “All men are created equal.”  He alleged viewpoint discrimination on a public forum.

In March 2025, he reached a settlement with the university. In June, the university was ordered to cover legal expenses as well. 

5. California Community Colleges retreat from enforcing DEI mandates after free speech lawsuit

Early 2025 saw a decision by the California Community Colleges System to back out of enforcing a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) mandate. 

The mandate would effectively require professors to embrace and instruct diversity narratives. Yet, following an anti-DEI lawsuit by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) back in 2023, the system retreated. 

FIRE attorney Daniel Ortner said that “We sued on behalf of six community college professors because a fair reading of the DEI Rules and guidance documents released by the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office indicated that California planned to force its more than 50,000 community college professors to teach and endorse politicized concepts like anti-racism in the classroom.”