Campus Rights Advocacy

Defending Your Rights

Our Campus Rights Advocacy team provides free assistance to students and faculty facing civil liberties violations on America’s college and university campuses. 

With a focus on free expression and academic freedom, our advocates routinely support students and faculty investigated or punished for actions such as saying, teaching, or researching something unpopular or controversial; violating vague or overbroad policies that contradict the institution’s other free speech promises; or inviting a controversial speaker to deliver a talk on campus.

Billboard truck with a FIRE ad that reads: "NYU silencing pro-Palestinian voices"

Campus Advocacy

FIRE has helped thousands of college students and faculty when their rights were threatened. Learn more about our advocacy.

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Rebecca Bryant Novak conducting an orchestra

“To conduct an orchestra once in your lifetime . . . is just an enormous privilege," said University of Rochester doctoral student Rebecca Bryant Novak.

Censored conductor returns to podium for first time since expulsion

WATCH VIDEO

Take a seat with us at FIRE’s first-ever classical music concert in support of free expression: “Outspoken: Music for Free Speech.” At the podium is conductor Rebecca Bryant Novak, a former doctoral student at the University of Rochester’s Eastman School of Music. Taking the stage for the first time since she was expelled without due process after speaking out about alleged harassment, Rebecca leads an all-volunteer orchestra in an unforgettable evening of music.

Coastal Carolina University Professor Steven Earnest
"Without the help and leadership of FIRE, I am certain that I would have been forced out of my career of over 25 years." — Coastal Carolina University Professor Steven Earnest

Faculty Need Not Be Afraid to Speak

Defending Faculty Rights

Public college and university faculty who face a threat of sanction by their institution or have been punished for expressive activity — whether it’s instruction, scholarship, or speaking on issues of public concern — can submit their case to FIRE's Faculty Legal Defense Fund for consideration.

Faculty Legal Defense Fund

Kim Diei in the FIRE Philadelphia Office

Can FIRE Help Me?

FIRE helps people whose expressive rights have been violated — and those violations take a lot of forms. If you think your rights have been violated, tell us about it. Our team will review your case to see how we can help. It’s totally confidential and there’s never a cost to you.

Case Submission FAQ

Use FIRE’s free speech resources to inform your defense

Access decades of FIRE’s nonpartisan resources, case archives, and more.

College Free Speech Rankings

Survey

Polling over 44,000 students at 208 top American colleges and universities, FIRE’s Free Speech Rankings is the largest survey of campus free expression ever performed.

Explore College Free Speech Rankings
Due Process Report 2019-2020

Due Process Reports

Resources

Due process and fundamental fairness are in crisis on America’s college and university campuses. FIRE analyzes disciplinary procedures at 53 top-ranked institutions nationwide and rates them based on 10 fundamental elements of due process.

Learn More
Scholars Under Fire

Scholars Under Fire

Research

Over the past seven years, there have been more than 500 incidents in which scholars were targeted for some form of professional sanction over constitutionally protected speech.

Explore Data

Three Steps to Your Defense

We review hundreds of potential rights violations each year and seek justice for those we help. How? By using our authority and reputation to directly demand that those in power respect the Constitution or uphold their own stated commitments to civil liberties.

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  • Concerned that your rights may be at risk? If you are in trouble for something you said, contact FIRE confidentially. 

    For faculty at public colleges and universities, call FIRE’s Faculty Legal Defense Fund Hotline: 254-500-FLDF (3533). 

    If you’re a college journalist facing censorship or a media law question, call the Student Press Freedom Initiative 24-hour hotline at 717-734-SPFI (7734).

    Contact Us

Guides to Student Rights on Campus

FIRE’s Guides to Student Rights on Campus emphasize the critical importance of rule of law and fair procedure over partisan and repressive rules. Written by legal experts, the FIRE Guides address both the ways in which students' rights are curtailed on campuses as well as the ways to make those rights whole.

Explore Your Rights

Clip art collage of books, a lightbulb, and a protest sign, indicating freedom of speech

FIRE's Guide to Free Speech on Campus

Campus Guides
FIRE has distributed more than 138,000 print and online copies of its Guide to Free Speech on Campus to equip students with the rhetorical and legal tools to stand up for their rights.
Clip art collage including the scales of justice and a hand banging a gavel, indicating due process.

FIRE's Guide to Due Process and Campus Justice

Campus Guides
This FIRE Guide informs readers about the appropriate (and inappropriate) methods by which university administrators address issues of academic and non-academic misconduct.
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