YuLin Zhen, Photography Editor

Yale ranks 155 out of 257 in the 2025 College Free Speech Rankings conducted by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, also known as FIRE. The ranking is a “significant improvement” from last year’s 234 of 254, as FIRE’s spotlight report on Yale pointed out.

The ranking and accompanying reports published on Sept. 5 by FIRE noted that Yale performs “well” on student openness and self-censorship, “moderately well” in comfort expressing ideas, “poorly” in administrative support and “terribly” in disruptive conduct.

“[Yale’s improvement in tolerance] could be a one-year artifact. We don’t know,” Sean Stevens, chief research advisor at FIRE, told the News. “We’ll see if that trend continues right next year, but it’s a good sign.”

FIRE weighted responses using demographic information on a college’s “race, gender, class year, voter registration status and financial aid status” to be representative of the student population. In addition to survey responses, behavioral measures such as the administration’s defense of free speech or sanctioning of scholars are also included in the scoring system.

FIRE conducted the survey, gathering data from 375 undergraduates at Yale. Students were surveyed through the College Pulse mobile app, which allows college students to earn monetary rewards for completing the surveys.

“I have respect for the people at FIRE,” Dean of Yale College Pericles Lewis said. “But I do think that these kinds of organizations like to give people report cards, and they often focus on the negative, especially if you’re a well-known college. So I wouldn’t claim we’re perfect in those areas, but I would rate us ‘green.’”

FIRE rated Yale as “yellow,” signifying a restrictive or overly vague school policy that could be used to restrict protected speech.

Out of a possible score of 100, Yale scored 44.04 this year, up from last year’s 26.64. The University of Virginia ranked first with an overall score of 73.45, while Columbia, Harvard and New York University scored the lowest possible score of zero.

Justin Crosby ’25, who interned at FIRE during the summer of 2023, expressed worry over self-censorship at Yale, recalling politically right-of-center students he interviewed for a sociology class expressing fear of social and professional consequences. 

“There seem to be more deterrents than incentives for sharing unpopular beliefs,” Crosby wrote. “I haven’t seen that change in my time here, even though Yale has progressed in FIRE’s rankings.” 

In an email to the News, professor of diagnostic radiology, public health, economics and management Howard Forman doubted Yale’s rise in rank was due to actual changes on campus. 

When asked about potential reasons for Yale’s ranking jump, FIRE’s Stevens emphasized the relative nature of the ranking. Despite minor changes to several questions in the “tolerance” section, he said, Yale’s rise may instead be due to other colleges’ worsening free speech environments. Referencing administration responses to campus protests at Columbia, NYU and Barnard College, Stevens stated Yale being “stagnant” may be the reason for the relative rise.

In April and May 2024, Yale police arrested a total of 52 protesters, 46 of whom were Yale students, during mass pro-Palestine protests on campus.

Lauren Noble ’11, founder and executive director of the Buckley Institute, a conservative, believes there was still work to do, as the students “feel a pressure to conform to the progressive campus mainstream and self-censor rather than share dissenting perspectives.”

When asked about Yale’s tolerance ranking jump, Lewis notes that he did not want to “take too much credit for things that might just be in the air and the culture,” but that the University has made an effort to encourage free expression and the free exchange of ideas on campus.

He also noted an improvement in Yale’s general culture that could have contributed to the change in ranking but added that the University could not necessarily take credit for it. 

FIRE released its first annual College Free Speech Rankings in 2020.