PHILADELPHIA, August 31, 2010—The 2011 edition of U.S. News & World Report’s Best Colleges issue, released today, includes a full-page advertisement from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) highlighting the six colleges and universities that have earned FIRE’s Red Alert distinction for being the “worst of the worst” when it comes to liberty on campus. These institutions are Bucknell University, Brandeis University, Colorado College, Johns Hopkins University, Michigan State University, and Tufts University. The advertisement also features the story of a graduate student who was nearly expelled from SUNY Binghamton for expressing his views about a faculty member he thought was responsible for social injustice.

FIRE is pleased to announce its third annual "Freedom in Academia" essay contest.

FIRE's mission states in part that we exist "to educate the public and communities of concerned Americans about the threats to rights on our campuses." For this purpose, high school students from across the country who will be graduating in 2011 and attending college the following fall are invited to write an in-depth essay explaining why free speech and First Amendment rights are crucial to higher education and how abuses of these rights are contrary to the purpose of a university education. Last year's contest was a huge success, garnering 2,700 essay submissions from students across the country.

With orientation sessions, meet-and-greets, and motivational speeches, college and university leaders are ushering in the Class of 2014. One such welcome message, delivered this past Sunday by Brandeis University President Jehuda Reinharz to the school's freshman class, caught FIRE's attention. Here's a portion of Reinharz's address, as reported by the Boston Globe:

"The next four years of your life are going to be, in my view, the best of your life. They are going to be a real new beginning for all of you," Reinharz said to students and their families, according to a statement released by the university. "You're going to be able to debate the great questions that have been debated by every generation before you and new ones that my generation and your parents['] generation never even dreamed of."

That is, unless these debates happen to offend someone's sensibilities. It is well-documented fact that, under the current Brandeis administration, the wrong words can be grounds to shut down debate. This was made especially apparent in the case of Brandeis Professor Donald Hindley, whose critique of the racial epithet "wetbacks" in his Latin American politics course led to his being found guilty of harassment in 2008.