September 28, 2022

The Honorable Miguel Cardona

Secretary
U.S. Department of Education
400 Maryland Ave. SW
Washington, D.C. 20202

Dear Secretary Cardona:

We are conducting oversight over the U.S. Department of Education’s (the Department)
administration of taxpayers’ dollars awarded to public and private colleges and universities under
various federal programs. Specifically, we are concerned many of these colleges and universities
are undermining free speech and academic freedom on their campuses. Despite this problem, the
Department does not seem to be engaged in promoting the free exchange of ideas within our
colleges and universities. In fact, we were troubled to hear that the Department did not extend the
free speech hotline first established by the past administration which was intended to be a
resource to report potential free speech violations. 1 We also do not know the status of the past
administration’s Religious Liberty and Free Inquiry Rule. 2 We request a briefing to understand
better what actions, if any, the Department is taking to promote free speech and academic
freedom on college campuses.
Attacks on Academic Speech and Freedom at U.S. Universities
Institutions of higher learning are places where faculty and students should test, develop,
and fine tune theories, thoughts, and ideas—some of which will inevitably be controversial.
Unfortunately, colleges and universities are stifling free thought and expression. Among these
schools are those which have been perceived as our country’s top schools, including Yale Law
School, 3 Georgetown University Law Center, 4 University of Washington, 5 University of
Pennsylvania, 6 and the University of Southern California. 7 These are just a handful of schools

1
Jeremiah Poff, Department of Education silently shuttered DeVos-era free speech hotline, WASHING
EXAMINER (August 17, 2022).
2
Jeremy Bauer-Wolf, Where is the Education Department’s proposed religious liberty and free inquiry rule?,
Higher Ed Dive (Sept. 7, 2022).
3
Aaron Sibarium, Hundreds of Yale Law Students Disrupt Bipartisan Free Speech Event, WASH. FREE BEACON
(Mar. 16, 2022).
4
David Frum, Georgetown’s Cowardice on Free Speech, THE ATLANTIC (May 20, 2022).
5
Haley Chi-Sing, University of Washington Professor Sues School, Alleging Free Speech Violation, FOX NEWS (Jul.
13, 2022).
6
Rachel Frommer, Law Professors Condemned as Racist after Praising America’s 1950s ‘Bourgeois Culture,’
WASH. FREE BEACON (Aug. 27, 2017); Karen Sloan, Penn Law Dean Wants ‘Major Sanctions’ Against Lightning
Rod Professor, REUTERS (Jul. 18, 2022).
7
Valerie Richardson, USC Under Federal Probe for Handling of Alleged Anti-Semitism Against Jewish Student
Leader, WASH. TIMES (Jul. 26, 2022).
The Honorable Miguel Cardona
September 28, 2022
Page 2 of 5

that in recent years have either suppressed or threatened to suppress faculty and student free
exercise speech.
Often school administrators suppress academic thought because it does not align with
ever-changing norms of political correctness. 8 Administrators at Yale Law School threatened to
interfere with one student’s ability to pass the character and fitness examination for his bar
license unless he apologized to a student group for an email. 9 St. Louis University disbursed
student fees among student organizations discriminately, based on political or ideological
affiliation. 10 Certain faculty at University of Pennsylvania, Georgetown University Law Center,
and Princeton University have been placed on administrative leave or faced threats of
termination or indefinite “investigations” for expressing their opinions outside the classroom on
social media. 11 A further motivation for such administrative actions taken against faculty and
students for expressing their thoughts and opinions are pressure campaigns from student groups
encouraging censorship. 12 This is no way to run an institution for frank and honest intellectual
discourse.
Incidents at public universities such as University of Washington, University of
Michigan, and University of Arizona mirror those at private universities. At University of
Washington, a computer science professor was disciplined for refusing to include a controversial
“indigenous land acknowledgement” statement on his course syllabi. 13 In another case, it took a
federal lawsuit for University of Michigan to disband its “bias response team” which was
dampening free speech by seeking out and reporting student conduct that was considered
“hostile” or “biased” against certain groups. 14 This past spring, disruptive student protesters shut
down a speech by constitutional law scholar Ilya Shapiro at University of California, Hastings
College of the Law. 15 In fact, student protesters routinely try to disrupt and even shut down
campus speakers. U.S. Senator Kyrsten Sinema, an instructor at Arizona State University, was
harassed even in the bathroom by protestors who were upset with her voting record. 16 All of
these instances exemplify how common it has become to disrupt speech.

8
Id.
9
Aaron Sibarium, A Yale Law Student Sent a Lighthearted Email Inviting Classmates to His ‘Trap House.’ The
School is Now Calling Him to Account, WASH. FREE BEACON (Oct. 13, 2021).
10
Caitlyn McCoy, SLU Doles Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars to Liberal Groups, Conservatives Get $440,
Young Am.’s Found. (Jun. 23, 2022).
11
Adam Steinbaugh, Penn Caves to Pressure, Initiates Disciplinary Proceedings Against Tenured Law Professor
Amy Wax, FIRE: FOUND. FOR INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS & EXPRESSION (Jan. 18, 2022); Nate Hochman, Inside
Georgetown Law’s Campaign to Cancel Ilya Shapiro: ‘This is Melting Down,’ NAT’L REV. (Feb. 2, 2022); Joshua
Katz, Princeton Fed Me to the Cancel Culture Mob, WALL. ST. J. (May 24, 2022).
12
Id.
13
Supra, n. 3.
14
Martin Slagter, University of Michigan Ends Bias Response Team in Free Speech Lawsuit Settlement, MICHIGAN
LIVE (Oct. 29, 2019).
15
Erwin Chemerinsky & Howard Gillman, Free Speech Doesn’t Mean Hecklers Get to Shut Down Campus Debate,
WASH. POST (Mar. 24, 2022).
16
Morgan Keith, Constituents Confront Senator in Arizona State University Bathroom Over Build Back Better
Agenda and Immigration, BUSINESS INSIDER (Oct. 4, 2021).
The Honorable Miguel Cardona
September 28, 2022
Page 3 of 5

Unfortunately, these efforts to suppress free speech are working. College students are
increasingly concerned about their ability to freely express their opinions and ideas on their
campuses. 17 Only 47 percent of students believe their speech rights are protected, and only about
half report being comfortable expressing disagreement with their instructor or peers in class. 18
Disturbingly, 66 percent of students reported believing that it is acceptable to shout down a
speaker to prevent them from speaking on campus, while 23 percent reported their belief that it is
acceptable to use actual violence to stop a campus speech. 19
An Example of Threatening Speech Tolerated Because it is Left Leaning Orthodoxy
However, despite these widespread challenges to freedom of speech, there are strange
exceptions which demand our attention. It appears that, if your speech is aligned with left leaning
orthodoxy, it will be protected even if it is arguably a threat against the Supreme Court justices.
For instance, on June 25, 2022, a Harvard Law School instructor tweeted the following:
The 6 justices who overturned Roe should never know peace again. It is our
civic duty to accost them every time they are in public. They are pariahs.
Since women don’t have their rights, these justices should never have a
peaceful moment again. 20
The tweet was later taken down. However, this same Harvard instructor acknowledge the power
of words in a later tweet:
This is such a stupid take [referring to an article by Bari Weiss relating to
the attack on Salman Rushdie]. Words are not violence? How was the fatwa
not violence? Rushdie had to go into hiding for 8 years because of it. It was
just words!
We need to realize that words have the ability to inspire violence and
directly harm people. They are not meaningless. 21
It appears this Harvard instructor needs to heed her own advice and cease tweeting verbal attacks
on politicians, commentators, judges, and others who hold conservative views. Instead, this
instructor might want to focus on tolerance and respect for all opinions. U.S. universities should
follow suit and foster an environment of tolerance, respect, and peaceful dissent.

17
Dante Chinni, Students Value Free Speech, but Feels Theirs is Threatened, NBC NEWS (Jan. 30, 2022);
Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill, Is Free Speech At-Risk on Today’s College Campuses? THE HILL (Apr. 15, 2022).
18
Knight Foundation, College Student Views on Free Expression and Campus Speech (Jan. 25, 2022).
19
2021 College Free Speech Rankings, FOUNDATION FOR INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS IN EDUCATION, available at
https://reports.collegepulse.com/college-free-speech-rankings-2021 (last accessed Aug. 10, 2022).
20
Alejandra Caraballo (@Esqueer_), Twitter (Jun. 25, 2022, 7:18 AM),https://campusreform.org/article?id=19822.
21
Alejandra Caraballo, (@Esqueer_), Twitter (Aug. 15, 2022).
https://twitter.com/Esqueer_/status/1559185185563820032?s=20&t=KzsWGSPLYPdqDg1IeTEtoA.
The Honorable Miguel Cardona
September 28, 2022
Page 4 of 5

Universities Receive Enormous Amounts of Taxpayer Dollars & Should Support Free
Speech—on all Sides of the Political Spectrum
The federal government gives U.S. public and private institutions substantial grants and
contracts funded entirely by taxpayers. For example, in 2019, Yale University received
approximately $620 million, Harvard University received approximately $1.1 billion, University
of Pennsylvania received approximately $830 million, Georgetown University received
approximately $370 million, and University of Southern California received approximately $1.1
billion.22 Public schools also receive substantial federal funding. In 2019, University of
Washington received $1.2 billion, University of Michigan received $1.1 billion, University of
California Hastings College of the Law received $30 million, and Arizona State University
received $1 billion in federal taxpayer dollars. 23 In total for 2019, federal funds were remitted to
public and private postsecondary education institutions in the form of federal student aid ($98
billion), grants ($41 billion), and contracts ($10 billion). 24Additionally, since 2020, Congress
pumped $76.2 billion in “emergency” funds into the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund
(HEERF) via the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act), the
Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act (CRRSAA), and the
American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). 25 These numbers are evidence that American taxpayers
make a significant investment in colleges and universities.
For this reason, these institutions of higher learning should be havens of free speech.
Instead, school administrators are undermining the very purpose of their institutions. The
proliferation of cancel culture in American higher education threatens the ability of students and
faculty to push themselves past their academic limits. The Department should be signaling to
these institutions that academic freedom is paramount for the success of students, faculty, and
society, and should help them see that limiting free speech is counter to the intellectual goals of
academia.
To assist Committee Republicans in conducting important oversight of the Department’s
administration of funds for higher education, including what the Department is doing to promote
free speech and academic freedom, we request a staff-level briefing as soon as possible, but no
later than October 5, 2022.
Thank you for your consideration of this important issue. To make arrangements to
schedule the briefing or ask any related follow-up questions, please contact Committee on
Oversight and Reform Republican Staff at (202) 225-5074. The Committee on Oversight and
Reform is the principal oversight committee of the U.S. House of Representatives and has broad

22
USASpending.GOV – DATALAB, FED. INV. IN HIGHER EDUC. (Oct. 2019), see
https://datalab.usaspending.gov/colleges-and-universities/ (last accessed Aug. 10, 2022).
23
Id.
24
Id.
25
CARES Act, Pub. L. No. 116-136 § 18004(a)(1-3) (2020); CRRSAA, Pub. L. No. 116-250 § 314, 134 Stat. 1932
(2020); ARPA, Pub. L. No. 117-2 § 2003, 135 Stat. 23 (2021); U.S. Dep’t of Educ., ARP: Am. Rescue Plan
(HEERF III), available at https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ope/arp.html (last accessed Aug. 10, 2022).
The Honorable Miguel Cardona
September 28, 2022
Page 5 of 5

authority to investigate “any matter” at “any time” under House Rule X. Thank you in advance
for your cooperation with this inquiry.

Sincerely,

_______________________________ _______________________________
James Comer Virginia Foxx
Ranking Member Ranking Member
Committee on Oversight and Reform Committee on Education and Labor

cc: The Honorable Carolyn B. Maloney, Chairman

House Committee on Oversight and Reform

The Honorable Robert C. Scott, Chairman

Committee on Education and Labor