Accreditation for College Excellence Act of 2023

Floor Speech

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Mr. KILEY. Mr. Chair, one of the most important things that has happened in this Congress is the exposure of the alarming state of affairs at American universities.

Our institutions of higher learning have been gripped by retrograde prejudices and abhorrent ideologies that are in many ways abandoning the values of the enlightenment itself.

Fortunately, we are finally seeing accountability and a new course. Following testimony before the Education and the Workforce Committee that highlighted the true state of affairs on their campus, the presidents of several leading universities have resigned, including the presidents of Harvard, Penn, Columbia, and Rutgers.

What is more, several of these universities are reversing misguided policies like forced faculty diversity statements and are renewing their commitment to institutional neutrality.

Even the entire California public university system, the UCs and the CSUs, recently came out and said they are going to ban these disgraceful tent encampments that have produced chaos on their campuses.

This is a moment of reckoning for American higher education. A very important part of that is restoring the place of free speech on campus, which is why I am very happy that included in today's bill, H.R. 3724, is a measure that I introduced, the Free Speech on Campus Act.

This measure seeks to assure that free speech is not only protected as a legal right but is restored as a foundational principle in American higher education.

Now, my colleague on the other side of the aisle from New York stressed the importance of bipartisanship in these matters, and I could not agree more.

As a matter of fact, I developed this measure alongside one of the leading liberal scholars in California, the dean of UC Berkeley, Erwin Chemerinsky, someone who I don't agree with on much, but we were able to come together on a principle that transcends political differences.

The best way to resolve differences, to learn to find common ground, is the free and open exchange of ideas.

Unfortunately, many universities have lost sight of this and have become the most repressive institutions in American life.

They have stifled disfavored viewpoints and created an environment where students are afraid to speak their mind and participate in the marketplace of ideas.

We have seen universities adopt unconstitutional speech codes or designate only certain areas on campus as open to speech or allow a heckler's veto to shut down speakers or force faculty members to espouse certain points of view in order to get hired or built up entire bureaucracies devoted to censorship.

All the more pervasively, this last year, the very same universities allowed the banner of free speech to then falsely be used to justify not speech but illegal actions such as building tent encampments, occupying buildings, or setting up checkpoints to exclude students based on their identity.

As one example, Harvard University, which became the poster child for abhorrent, horrifying anti-Semitism on campus, was also ranked as the university with the worst protections for free speech. In fact, they got the worst ranking in the history of the survey.

These two things are not unrelated, by the way, because the biggest threat to hate, ignorance, and prejudice is reasoned argument.

Institutions that systematically shut down reasoned argument and debate allow retrograde ideas to flourish because they don't have the needed opposition.

This bill seeks to reverse this troubling trend and to restore First Amendment freedoms at the place where they are most vital, our institutions of higher learning.

My legislation ensures that our universities inform students of their First Amendment rights as soon as they step on campus.

As a condition of receiving Federal funds, universities will be required to provide new students with a written statement at orientation.

It will outline their First Amendment rights, affirm the institution's commitment to free expression, and guarantee that neither students nor invited speakers will have those rights violated.

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Mr. KILEY. Too often, students arrive on campus without an understanding of why free speech is important or how it has been such an important force for progress throughout our Nation's history.

This legislation will make sure the First Amendment itself is a key part of their college education so they grasp its vital role in safeguarding freedom and democracy.

Mr. Chair, we may often disagree, sometimes fiercely, on a range of ideas, but we should all be able to agree on the importance of ideas themselves.

I urge my colleagues to join me in passing this legislation.

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