ANALYSIS: President Tania Tetlow questions how national free speech group reaches its conclusions – but methods are publicly available
The president of Fordham University said she does not understand why her university gets low ratings for free speech – while praising it for punishing a student for his pro-gun Instagram post.
Tania Tetlow made the comments last week on the “Freakonomics” podcast hosted by Stephen Dubner, co- author of the popular book by the same name.
Dubner and Tetlow (pictured, right) were discussing pro-Palestinian protests and encampments on campus and how to balance free speech without disrupting campus activities. Dubner mentioned a controversy that predated Tetlow when Fordham prohibited a Students for Justice in Palestine group from starting in 2016.
He then brought up the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression ratings of colleges. Fordham received one of the lowest ratings of all, coming in 244 out of 248.
Dubner asked:
And I also know that according to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, FIRE, which looks at free speech on campuses, Fordham ranks in the bottom 10 for colleges or universities across the country. So how do you, as a president, try to create a balance where you’re not limiting free speech, but also not turning your campus into a hotbed where it can’t accomplish the central purpose?
Tetlow said she is not sure how FIRE compiles its rankings.
“First of all, those FIRE rankings, we don’t really understand how they come to them,” Tetlow said.
She then praised her university for punishing a Chinese immigrant student (pictured, left) who posted a pro-gun message on his social media in 2020. The incident also predates her presidency, which began in 2022.
“At Fordham, we famously — and it got litigated — suspended a student who, after a verbal argument with fellow students, went and bought an assault rifle and then posted that on social media,” Tetlow said. “If he had shot up the campus, we would have been reamed if we had not done anything.”
She then criticized “some free speech purist group” for its criticism of the university.
FIRE responded to Tetlow’s comments, pointing out several errors.
Tetlow’s ignorance about the ratings “is more an indictment of Fordham than of our rankings,” FIRE wrote in a recent blog post.
“Our commitment to open and transparent science compels us to make our methodology publicly available, and we make the data upon which we base the rankings available to anyone on request,” FIRE wrote. “Not a single factor of our rankings is unknowable to anyone motivated to look into them.”
It then turned to Tetlow’s version of what happened with Austin Tong, the Asian student who posted a pro-liberty and pro-gun message on his personal social media.
FIRE wrote:
Tetlow misrepresents the case in a number of key ways. Tong wrote an Instagram post holding a gun off campus, with the popular libertarian phrase “Don’t tread on me,” an American flag and a Chinese flag, and a hashtag recognizing Tiananmen Square on the 31st anniversary of the massacre. For this, Fordham sent security officers to visit Tong, who concluded he was not a threat but later asked him to take down the post. Fordham then found him guilty of assertedly violating university policies on “bias and/or hate crimes” and “threats/intimidation.”
The national free speech group also said Tetlow is incorrect to accuse it of hypocrisy. The Fordham president had suggested free speech advocates also wanted her to limit pro-Palestinian conduct on campus.
“This accusation of hypocrisy is confusing, and we are not sure how it could apply to FIRE,” the group wrote. “We have been steadfastly nonpartisan and defended countless students and faculty on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict throughout our history, and especially since the October 7 attack.”
“We will release our 2025 rankings in early September, but without serious improvements on the ground, Fordham should not expect to fare much better.”
MORE: UChicago law students fight forced dues to anti-Israel union
IMAGES: Tiana Tetlow/Instagram; Austin Tong/Instagram
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