School Spotlight
St. John’s University
Speech Code Rating
- At present, FIRE does not maintain information on this school's policies.
St. John’s University: Professor Accused of Violating Bias Policy for Asking Students to Debate Global Trade
October 8, 2020
In September 2020, graduate student and adjunct History professor Richard Taylor taught a lesson about the history of the “Columbian Exchange,” the transfer of biodiversity and culture resulting from 15th and 16th century transatlantic trade. After a student filed a bias complaint about Taylor’s slideshow, which provided a discussion prompt (“Do the positives justify the… Read more
10 Worst Colleges for Free Speech: 2021
February 17, 2021
This year, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education is releasing its 10th list of the “worst colleges for free speech.” Since our first list in 2011, more than 70 institutions in 31 states have found themselves named and shamed for actively working to shut down student and faculty speech rights. Each year, hundreds of… Read more
FIRE presents the 10 Worst Colleges for Free Speech: 2021
February 17, 2021
PHILADELPHIA, Feb. 17, 2021 — Would you make a student homeless during the pandemic because you didn’t like something he said? Or threaten faculty doctors fighting COVID-19 with termination for speaking to the press? If you’re a campus official at one of the schools on this list, you just might! In the 10th edition of… Read more
Professor removed by St. John’s for asking history question files lawsuit
February 8, 2021
Attorneys for professor Richard Taylor filed a petition in a New York trial court on Thursday, asking the court to overturn the decision by St. John’s University to remove him from the classroom for allegedly violating the university’s anti-bias policy. Taylor, an adjunct professor, was found responsible for violating St. John’s anti-harassment policy and removed… Read more
Update: St. John’s limits academic freedom of history department in ongoing effort to punish professor for asking question
October 12, 2020
If you have been following the fight for academic freedom at St. John’s University since last week, there are some updates to that situation. And if you haven’t been paying attention yet, but you believe in academic freedom, get some antacid before you read further. What began as the suppression of the academic freedom of… Read more
Teaching history not permitted: St. John’s bulldozes academic freedom, punishes professor for posing question about ‘Columbian Exchange’
October 8, 2020
NEW YORK, Oct. 8, 2020 — “Do the positives justify the negatives?” It’s a standard question asked of history students about a range of topics to encourage critical thinking. But when St. John’s University adjunct professor Richard Taylor posed this question to students during a class about the “Columbian Exchange” — the process of globalization… Read more
Student Press Law Center: Another Semester, Another Rash of Newspaper Theft
December 9, 2016
Sad but true: College newspapers are stolen with mind-numbing regularity. Just about every semester brings fresh reports of newspapers being stolen right from their racks, a clumsy act of censorship that campus speech watchdogs like FIRE and the Student Press Law Center (SPLC) have been forced to condemn countless times over the years. Unfortunately, this… Read more
FIRE Joins NYCLU Effort to Protect Creative Writing, Clarify Threat Policy at St. John’s
April 7, 2016
FIRE is among a coalition of free speech groups, led by the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), asking St. John’s University to protect creative writing on campus. The university, located in the New York City borough of Queens, alerted the NYPD last year after a student wrote a fictional story about a school shooting…. Read more
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