Campus Activism Resources
Guide to Working With Your Student Government
For many students, interacting with student government leaders can be intimidating. However, if you seek to affect change on campus, working with student governments can be one of the best tools at your disposal. Working with students who hold administration-facing leadership positions can provide the access and influence you need to bolster free expression on your campus. Learn more about interacting with student government.
Amplify the Activists: Activism on Campus Toolkit
The warning signs of over-restrictive speech codes can be difficult to spot — unless you know what you’re looking for. Learn to spot the signs of restrictive speech policies, educate your campus community, and work to reverse problematic policies. Use this toolkit and accompanying resources to guide your activism. Download the toolkit’s graphics and social media kit.
FIRE Activism Report
We want to hear about your activism efforts! Please fill out FIRE’s Activism Report to let us know what you’re doing to create change at your college or university. To sweeten the deal, the FIRE Student Network is providing incentives for each eligible activism report submission.
Stamp Out Speech Codes: Activism on Campus Toolkit
Educate your fellow students, faculty, and staff about policies on campus that restrict speech and take action to eliminate or amend them. Use this toolkit and accompanying resources to guide your activism against illiberal speech codes on campus. Download the toolkit’s graphics and social media kit.
Commit to Expression: Activism on Campus Toolkit
Ensure that freedom of expression is protected on your campus! This toolkit has all of the information and resources you need to get a free speech policy statement adopted at your school and see to it that free speech and robust debate is made a priority on your campus. Download the toolkit’s graphics and social media kit.
Let Them Speak: Activism on Campus Toolkit
Take action to ensure that everyone on campus has the right to speak! Use this toolkit to educate your campus community about the right to listen and the worrisome trend of disinviting campus speakers, and offer tactics for how students can respond to speech with which they disagree without resorting to censorship. Download the toolkit’s graphics and social media kit.
Speak Truth to Power: Activism on Campus Toolkit
Use your voice so that others can use theirs on campus! Explore the Speak Truth to Power toolkit to learn how you can engage with your campus community this fall and ensure that everyone on campus has the right to speak truth to power. Download the toolkit’s graphics and social media kit.
10 Ways You Can Promote Free Speech On Campus
Check out this list for inspiration on some of the many ways you can use campus activism to promote free speech on your campus. Do one thing, check off the whole list, or get creative and come up with your own activism event!
Know Your School’s Speech Code
The first step toward protecting and defending your rights on campus is to find out if your school has policies that restrict speech. Learn how FIRE rates university policies and what you can do to protect the speech rights of students on your campus.
Adopting the Chicago Statement
The “Chicago Statement” is a free speech policy statement that many universities have adopted, affirming their commitment to free expression. Learn more about the statement and what you can do to have a free speech statement adopted at your school.
Model Free Expression Resolution
Ensure that your school is the next to adopt a free speech statement! You can access sample student and faculty government resolutions in support of the adoption of the Chicago Statement here.
Chicago Statement Endorsement Letter to University
Write a letter to administrators at your school endorsing the adoption of the Chicago Statement. Using this letter template, all you have to do is fill in the blanks with the name of your institution and send it out in email or letter form.
Chicago Statement Endorsement Letter to Alma Mater
Use this letter template to implore the administration at your alma mater to stand up for free speech and adopt the Chicago Statement. Most of the work is already done for you. Just fill in the information and send it out.
Campus Free Expression Act Letter to Representative
Write a letter to your representative endorsing the Campus Free Expression (CAFE) Act, legislation designed to prohibit public colleges and universities from limiting students’ speech and expressive activity to unconstitutional “free speech zones.”
For more than 20 years, FIRE has worked to protect fundamental rights on America’s college and university campuses in several key areas, including: freedom of speech and expression; religious liberty and freedom of association; freedom of conscience; and due process and legal equality on campus. FIRE works intensively and collaboratively with students to provide information and resources on how they can work with us, and independently, toward meeting these important goals.
Check out (and join!) FIRE’s Student Network for links to these resources, including information about FIRE’s Summer Internship, FIRE’s Student Defenders program, and much more.