The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) released its 2026 College Free Speech Rankings this month, revealing that Wellesley College dropped 83 places to rank 225th out of 257 schools. FIRE surveyed 68,510 student respondents from 257 colleges and universities nationwide on their comfort with expressing views and their perceptions of administrative tolerance for speech, giving Wellesley an overall grade of F.
Wellesley joined 166 other schools nationwide that received failing scores, with Massachusetts colleges ranking among the most speech-restrictive in the country, according to The Boston Globe. Fourteen Massachusetts institutions — including Wellesley College, Boston College, Northeastern University, and MIT — earned grades ranging from F to D-. CBS coverage explained that Northeastern fell 75 spots this year after a controversy over a cancelled lecture by an Israeli historian, while Boston College’s score dropped due to administrative restrictions on a pro-Palestinian demonstration.
Numbers
FIRE collaborates with CollegePulse, a data-driven research company, to draw polls from hundreds of students at representative institutions across North America. For their 2026 Wellesley College rankings, FIRE surveyed 254 Wellesley students. Their results found that 42% of students “self-censored” their opinions on campus, 87% agreed that “shouting down a speaker” can be justified and 38% said that “using violence to stop someone from speaking” is acceptable in some cases. Additionally, FIRE noted that the political ratio was roughly 21:1, noting there are about 21 liberal-identifying students for every conservative-identifying one.
FIRE also assigns letter grades to several sub-categories of expression. Since 2021, Wellesley’s marks have significantly dropped in three areas, earning a C in Disruptive Conduct, F in Administrative and F in Political Tolerance.
To better understand what these labels represent, The Wellesley News reached out to Sean Stevens, a FIRE Senior Research Fellow in Polling and Analytics. Stevens explained that FIRE results are adjusted to reflect each school’s demographic, ensuring the samples are representative.
FIRE’s report specifically recommends that Wellesley “boost its score” by “revis[ing] its written speech policies to earn a green-light rating” and consider adopting the Chicago Statement, a 2015 University of Chicago free speech policy that maintains that the best response to “bad” speech is more speech, rather than institutional suppression. The College has not endorsed the Chicago principles, stating an effort to be “more intentional about when we do that or if we do that,” according to Vice President of Communications and Public Affairs Tara Murphy.
“We are confident that we are capturing broadly how most students feel on Wellesley’s campus. As noted above, we apply poststratification weights, like most survey researchers and companies do, to create representative samples at each school before calculating the rankings,” said Stevens.
Both Murphy and Dean of Student Affairs Sheilah Horton emphasized that the College is taking these findings seriously. Murphy noted that overall, the FIRE statistics align with the College’s internal research on campus discourse.
“Both FIRE stats and our own research, in some ways, have been similar,” said Murphy. “We are taking this seriously.”
In November 2024, Wellesley commissioned Grand River Solutions to conduct a survey on civil discourse among students. Out of 2,281 students invited to participate, 668 responded to at least one of the three questions, yielding a 29% response rate. The data was similar to the FIRE report: 36.8% of respondents said they felt either “very reluctant or somewhat reluctant” to share their views on controversial topics in the classroom, and 30% felt similarly hesitant outside of class.
For those reluctant to speak up, the top concerns revolved around peer reactions. 81% feared that others might make critical comments on them, 69% worried their views would be labeled offensive, and 60% expressed concern about being criticized on social media.
Community Response
Initially, Dean Horton expressed a “real disappointment” over how Wellesley is being portrayed. “[It is a] real disappointment that our campus is coming across as being intolerant to diverse views, especially when our campus is so diverse,” said Horton in an interview with the News. “[At Wellesley,] students have such a great opportunity and experience to live amongst people from all over the world with different views and opinions.”
In an interview with the News, Horton pointed to the social climate as a key factor in shaping these free speech findings.
“A small number of students can negatively influence [others], and the larger community that doesn’t speak up allows that negative narrative to go forward,” said Horton. “I have spoken with students who have said, ‘I don’t feel comfortable speaking up in the classroom because I worry that someone will say something about me on Sidechat’ or ‘I worry that I will be shunned in some way.’ I’ve encouraged those students to speak with their faculty to find ways that they can set standards in the classroom.”
The tension between desiring dialogue and fearing backlash was echoed by Maggie Roberts ’20, an alumna who described a personal scenario in advocating for civil conversation across political lines.
“I’m from rural North Carolina, where 60% of my county voted for Trump,” said Roberts. “I was all about trying to not labeling all people who voted for Trump as a monolith of horrible, bad racists, but there were people who thought that even trying to connect with people who voted for Trump was an act of aggression, so I did eventually tone that down because I felt like people thought that I was making excuses, when really I was just trying to come up with a way to connect.”
Roberts explained that while she recognized the emotional labor involved with discussion across political lines, she believed that “just trying to get other people to imagine your experience or [trying to imagine] someone else’s experience is kind of the point of college.”
According to the FIRE survey, 41% of Wellesley students reported self-censorship of their opinions on campus at least twice a month.
“It is very difficult to pinpoint a specific example, which is part of what makes it difficult to cope with constantly having to self-censor because I do not even realize I am doing it most of the time,” said a student in the Class of 2028, in response to the FIRE survey.
Many students reportedly felt comfortable expressing their opinions in class with professors but not in social situations with peers, pointing to a certain level of intolerance for differing opinions among students in particular.
“In the classroom … I feel comfortable sharing [opinions]. I think outside of class, I personally haven’t felt like I would be victimized or anything for what I said, but I can see how there definitely is a consensus of what’s popular to think and believe at Wellesley, and if someone did believe out of that norm, I can see why they probably would be a little bit hesitant to speak up,” said Amber Moosa ’28.
Murphy noted that many of these sentiments extended into campus culture. She cited recent backlash surrounding invited speakers at the Hillary Rodham Clinton Center for Citizenship, Leadership and Democracy (HRCC) as an example of how some students react to differing viewpoints. According to her, the HRCC’s goal is to “be a place where people with different views, who have found ways to work together on really important issues, talk about that and engage students.”
Murphy emphasized that students are not required to agree with speakers.
“Higher education is teaching students how to think. It’s not telling you what to think. And so part of education is being open to hearing other views and then you make up your own mind,” she said.
To Roberts, it made sense why censorship levels have remained stagnant since her time at Wellesley from 2016 to 2020.
“I think that because [the] Wellesley [community] is [primarily] young adults, 18 to 22, it’s a mix of good intentions and adolescence. Also, I do think the fact that it’s a historically women’s college does play into this, in the sense that women were socialized to not upset people and to keep the peace and also to protect other people, and I think that, again, this all kind of plays into the culture of [community] censorship and self censorship,” said Roberts.
Roberts additionally identified the College’s social environment as a key factor shaping how students engage with disagreement.
“I do think some of the censorship at Wellesley is about people not wanting other people, or themselves, to experience microaggressions. It’s out of a desire to protect people that there’s censorship. But I do think at a certain point there becomes a pile-on that is more like the joy of canceling someone, like a sadistic joy of someone getting in trouble … Then it becomes counterproductive.” said Roberts.
Horton called upon College Government and other student leaders, including seniors, to facilitate more free speech and open dialogue.
“We can have our views and what we’re proud of, but we have to remember, everyone should be able to have their views, even if their views are different from yours. I encourage students to help each other, and I discourage that mean spirit that comes across because it makes the entire community feel limited in their ability to be who they are,” said Horton.
Murphy echoed this sentiment, emphasizing the self-determination of Wellesley students in fostering a positive and open environment.
“Students have real agency in deciding the kind of community they want to be. Do they want to give each other the grace and the understanding to be able to have a community that is able to listen and learn from each other – or not?” Murphy asked.
As conversations about free expression continue, both administrators and students emphasized the importance of rebuilding trust within the community.
“Just assume good intent. Wellesley is probably one of the few places in life where you’re really surrounded by people who want the world to be a better place, and even want to do something about making the world a better place, and that’s really cool,” said Roberts.
Contact the editors responsible for this story: Lyanne Wang and Galeta Sandercock
