23 House republicans introduced a resolution Wednesday to protect support of the First Amendment and free speech, as well as to protect academic freedoms for students and faculty.
The resolution, led by North Carolina Rep. Greg Murphy, came after Reps. Murphy, Stefanik and Cammack hosted the first-ever Campus Free Speech Roundtable in the Capitol to highlight the importance of diversification of thought in higher education.
The resolution is, “expressing support for the First Amendment to the Constitution and its bipartisan impact regarding the protection of free speech as well as academic freedoms for all students and faculty.”
It cites the First Amendment, Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, the ACLU, the Bipartisan Policy Center Fire, former Rep. John Lewis and more to try and make the resolution as bipartisan as possible, the Daily Caller reports.
“There is no doubt that institutions of higher learning have become vectors of teaching what to think, rather than how to think – they speak often of diversity in all things except opinion. It is clear that we have a problem on our campuses. In a 2021 survey, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) reported that an overwhelming 83 percent of students report self-censoring their viewpoints on campus at least some of the time, with 21 percent reporting that they often censor their views. If that’s not a massive red flag about the sanctity of free speech in higher education, I don’t know what is,” Murphy told the Daily Caller in a statement before introducing the resolution.
The resolution is backed by the following lawmakers: Reps. Jim Jordan, Kat Cammack, Elise Stefanik, Michael Bost, Ben Cline, Mariannette Miller-Meeks, Tracey Mann, Ted Budd, Warren Davidson, Julia Letlow, Brian Babin, Ralph Norman, Greg Steube, Scott Fitzgerald, Guy Reschenthaler, Randy Weber, Claudia Tenney, Doug LaMalfa, Tom McClintock, Blake Moore, Burgess Owens and Gus Bilirakis.
