FIRE’s 2027 College Free Speech Rankings are out, and Princeton fell to 176th out of 261 schools, down from 160th out of 257 last year. Score: 58.1. Grade: F. Among Ivy League peers, Princeton lands in the middle of the pack — behind Dartmouth (6th), Harvard (71st), Yale (72nd), and Brown (98th), but ahead of Cornell (219th), Penn (227th), and Columbia (246th). The core of the FIRE rankings is a yearly student survey.
Here’s the good part news: on almost every question that measures how students actually feel, Princeton does well. The university ranks 4th in the country on whether students trust the administration to protect speech and defend a speaker during controversy — a strength for six years running. It ranks 4th on political tolerance, meaning Princeton students are more willing than students nationally to let controversial speakers from either side of the aisle actually speak on campus. That’s an area Princetonians for Free Speech (PFS) has worked directly to support (helping student groups have controversial speakers on campus and defending their right to be heard once they’re there) and it’s good to see it showing up in the numbers. Self-censorship ranks 15th, and comfort expressing ideas jumped from 165th last year to 35th — one of the biggest swings in the whole national survey.
So if students feel this good about speech at Princeton, why the F? There are two problem areas, and both are easily fixable by the administration:
The written policies. Princeton still carries FIRE’s worst rating “red light” for rules on harassment, internet use, and demonstrations that give administrators broad discretion to punish protected speech. FIRE’s report is specific: three of Princeton’s four harassment policies don’t meet the legal standard for peer harassment; the internet policy bans vaguely defined “malicious” or “harassing” content; and Princeton requires advance approval for all protests, which effectively prohibits any spontaneous demonstration. PFS has sent the university specific, workable language to fix exactly these provisions before; the university has not responded or acted on it.
No institutional neutrality. Princeton has adopted the Chicago Statement on free speech, but has not adopted a policy of institutional neutrality, meaning the university still may take official positions on political and social issues, unlike a growing list of peers including Harvard, Penn, and Cornell.
FIRE ran the numbers on what fixing these defects would actually do: if Princeton simply moved from “red light” to “yellow light” on its policies, it would rank 82nd instead of 176th. Add institutional neutrality on top of that, and it would rank 53rd. Fixing the policies is the single clearest lever available, and it’s one Princeton’s leadership can pull without touching anything about campus culture ... and one we’ve already handed them a roadmap for.
None of this is abstract. These rankings are used by prospective students and their families deciding where to apply, and right now Princeton’s actual policies are dragging down a genuinely strong campus climate Princeton has built— and one PFS has had a hand in building.