The FIRE Rankings Debate Is Missing a Strong Signal About Student Need
By Mylien Duong, PhD CDI’s Chief Impact Officer

Every September, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) releases its College Free Speech Rankings, and a familiar debate follows. Some institutions question the methodology, pointing to sample sizes, question wording, or the weight given to campus incidents. Others focus on where particular institutions landed.

Those debates are reasonable. But they tend to obscure a more useful finding in the data: Students consistently say they value dialogue and free expression, yet many hold back when disagreement actually arises.

That gap has appeared across several major surveys of college students. It also gives campus leaders something they can act on, regardless of where their institution ranks.

What students say they want

In a nationally representative survey of 2,618 college students conducted by the Constructive Dialogue Institute (CDI) and More in Common, 94% agreed that “we should listen to others with an open mind, including those with whom we disagree.”

Other surveys show similarly broad support for free expression. In a 2024 Knight Foundation-Ipsos survey, 93% of students agreed that protecting free speech is an important part of American democracy. Support was nearly identical among Democrats, Republicans, and independents. Ninety-two percent also agreed that people should be allowed to express unpopular opinions.

These findings do not mean that students agree about the appropriate limits on speech or whether a particular statement represents legitimate disagreement, unacceptable harm, or something in between. But the underlying value of hearing different views is widely shared, which is remarkable in a climate where people don’t tend to agree on much.

What students do anyway

The 2026 FIRE rankings report, based on responses from 68,510 students at 257 institutions, shows the other half of the picture. Sixty-five percent of students said they self-censor during classroom discussions at least once or twice a month. Twenty-eight percent said they do so a couple of times a week or nearly every day. Just over half said they would be uncomfortable expressing their views on a controversial political topic during an in-class discussion.

Students also reported that many subjects are difficult to discuss openly. Fifty-three percent identified the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as difficult to discuss on their campus. Only 13% did not identify a single difficult topic from FIRE’s list.

CDI’s research with More in Common points in the same direction. Forty-five percent of students said they were somewhat or very often afraid to share their views for fear of offending their peers. Among very conservative students, that figure reached 64%.

These surveys use different questions, samples, and methods, so their estimates should not be treated as interchangeable. Taken together, however, they show a consistent tension: Students express broad support for dialogue and free expression while also reporting substantial restraint in practice.

A rank is relative. The underlying problem is not.

An institution’s rank depends on how it compares with other institutions. A campus can improve and still fall in the rankings if its peers improve more. Conversely, it can rise in rankings without making meaningful progress if other institutions decline. To be fair, FIRE reports more than the rank, but the placement alone, which is often what gets attention, cannot tell campus leaders whether students’ day-to-day experiences are getting better.

The underlying outcomes can be assessed directly. Do students believe that disagreement is valuable? Do they think their peers share that belief? How comfortable are they expressing a dissenting view in class? How often do they hold back? Campuses can measure these questions among their own students and track whether the answers change over time.

To be clear, we are not evaluating FIRE’s methodology here. Our point is that the findings beneath the rankings deserve at least as much attention as the list itself.

Why might the gap persist?

The surveys do not establish why students who value dialogue often remain silent. One plausible explanation is that support for dialogue is largely private, while the social risks of speaking are much more visible.

A student considering whether to offer a dissenting view cannot see what most classmates privately believe about the value of disagreement. The student can see whether anyone else has spoken, how peers respond, and whether the instructor seems prepared to handle tension. When no one offers a different view, some students may interpret the silence as agreement. That perception can make others less willing to speak, reinforcing the appearance of consensus.

This is unlikely to be the only explanation. Students may also hold back because they lack confidence in their knowledge, distrust the institution, have previously had a negative experience, or simply do not know how to express disagreement constructively. Which barriers matter most will vary by campus and by student; no single explanation is likely to fit everyone.

What campuses can do

If part of the problem is that students cannot see others’ willingness to engage, campuses can make that willingness more visible and reduce the risks associated with participation. Three practices offer a practical starting point.

Set and revisit clear norms for disagreement. Students begin forming expectations about a course during the first week. Faculty can use the syllabus and their opening discussions to explain what students should do when views diverge, how the class will handle a heated moment, and why engaging disagreement matters to the course. Those norms should be revisited when an actual controversy arises. A statement made during the first week is easy to forget; applying it in a difficult moment shows students that the norm is real.

Lower the stakes of entering the conversation. Speaking first in front of an entire class carries more social risk than responding anonymously or talking with one peer. Faculty can ask students to write briefly before discussion begins, exchange views in pairs, or respond anonymously before opening the conversation to the full group. These structures allow more students to participate before any one person becomes the public face of disagreement.

Teach and practice the skills. Constructive disagreement is not a disposition that some students naturally possess and others lack. It includes specific skills: accurately summarizing another person’s view, asking questions before making assumptions, separating a claim from the person making it, and staying engaged when a comment lands badly. Students can learn these skills, but they need opportunities to practice them before the most difficult conversations occur.

The question to ask this September

When FIRE rankings are released, campuses again debate the methodology and compare their placement with peers. But campus leaders should also ask a set of questions that rankings cannot answer on their own: Are our students becoming more willing and able to engage disagreement? Do they understand that many of their peers value open dialogue too? Are fewer students withholding their views because they fear the response?

Those are outcomes an institution can assess and improve on its own timeline. Students’ stated appetite for dialogue does not guarantee that dialogue will occur. The work for campus leaders is to help translate that appetite into practice.