NYU received an “F” grade — a small step up from last year’s “F-” — on an annual list that evaluates free speech and expression policies across U.S. universities, ranking No. 250 out of 257 schools.
The 2026 College Free Speech Rankings, calculated by the nonprofit Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, assessed colleges based on student surveys, university policies and recent controversies related to free speech. This year, the watchdog organization gave NYU a score of 48.2 out of 100 — its highest mark since 2022. IT was one of 166 colleges to fall into the “F” tier.
“Compared to other universities in the city like Barnard and Columbia, NYU has few speech incidents that negatively impact its score,” Sean Stevens, FIRE’s chief research advisor, said in an email to WSN. “This is an improvement over last year, as some penalties applied then have decayed and are no longer impacting NYU’s ranking.”
Last year, NYU earned an “abysmal” score of 3.33 points out of 100. FIRE has since revised its scoring system, which now gives NYU 44.3 points in the 2025 rankings. The new system also upped the university’s spot by one place, from No. 251 last year.
The new report claims that the university placed in the bottom 50 schools of all but one subranking, indicating “shortcomings across nearly every dimension of campus speech.” The subrankings addressed topics such as “political tolerance,” “self-censorship” and “openness,” and were based on student survey
In September 2024, FIRE also submitted a complaint criticizing the university’s heaviest sanctions on pro-Palestinian demonstrators. NYU’s accreditation agency closed the case in December, but year’s score was “hammered” after NYU administrators requested that a group of law students contractually pledge to cease on-campus protest to avoid disciplinary action.
FIRE surveyed over 68,000 students across the country, including 313 from NYU, to support its findings. Students’ were asked how often their peers self-censor, how they felt administrators handle expression-related issues and their overall experience with tense conversations on campus.” Nearly 70% of NYU students said they were uncomfortable expressing opinions about “the Israeli/Palestinian conflict,” and over 30% shared the same sentiment for topics such as “Religion,” “the 2024 presidential election” and “Immigration.”
David Bloomfield, a scholar in higher education law, said in a statement to WSN that NYU’s score was hurt by the absence of certain widely adopted free speech policies. FIRE also advises schools to take on the Chicago Statement, a policy committing to open debates and free expression for all community members, and Institutional Neutrality, a principle that states that schools should not take a public stance on political issues, two practices that FIRE also recommended the university to adopt.
Columbia University and Barnard College took the bottom two spots in this year’s ranking. NYU surpassed several schools that were ahead of it ahead of it last year, including Northeastern University and Boston College. But Harvard University — which once dwelled in the bottom three spots with NYU and Columbia — received a few more points this year.
Since protests surged following Oct. 7, 2023, NYU has come under fire for its handling of on-campus demonstrations. Dozens of students and faculty were arrested an encampment outside the Stern School of Business in Spring 2024, and several students were issued persona-non-grata statuses — barring them from most university buildings — following demonstrations earlier this year.
An NYU spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment.
Contact Natalie Deoragh at [email protected].
