The College Fix

Incidents averaged a little over two times per week over last 12 months

There’s been a lot of changes in 2024 — but one thing that’s stayed the same is political correctness on college campuses. Campus cancel culture continued to hold sway over the last 12 months, with 120 incidents on colleges and universities that ran the gamut.

San Diego State University investigated two white students for dressing up as Diddy and bottle of baby oil, for example.

Other incidents include a detransitioner’s “Born in Right Body” event canceled at Berklee College of Music after the student host was bullied and threatened; Indiana State University canceled a speech by National Review editor Rich Lowry, citing safety concerns; and a Ben Franklin statue at the University of Pennsylvania was completely defaced with red paint by pro-Hamas activists.

Nearly 30 incidents on this year’s list can be traced to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the vast majority of which centered on protests from pro-Hamas, anti-Israel agitators who often successfully shut down meetings and other events they objected to.

Among the examples, a guest lecture by a Jewish professor at San Jose State University turned physical — forcing police to contain the rowdy crowd of protesters and protect the scholar as he exited the building, and Rutgers University’s president and some Jewish students were forced to flee a meeting due to anti-Israel protesters.

Cops at the University of Nevada Las Vegas also shut down an Israeli professor’s lecture rather than remove anti-Israel protesters, and pro-Palestinian protesters shut down Pomona College’s convocation.

Conservative and prolife students’ displays were also frequently attacked and vandalized this year, including a display criticizing gender transitioning thrashed by an “unhinged” activist at UC Berkeley and pink crosses representing aborted babies stolen from a lawn at North Carolina State University.

The incidents were tracked and recorded by The College Fix’s exclusive Campus Cancel Culture Database, which monitors and chronicles suppression efforts in higher education.

The database defines cancel culture as any effort by people or groups to identify someone or something as offensive or unacceptable and seek in some way to censor or punish the transgressor or item. It tracks both successful cancelations as well as attempted efforts, which can still have a chilling effect on freedom of speech and intellectual diversity.

Of the 120 campus cancel culture incidents from Jan. 1 through today, 67 were successful and the rest, 53, were attempted cancelations.

With 52 weeks in a year and 120 incidents in 2024, that’s an average of 2.31 incidents per week over the last 12 months.

“The thing The College Fix does best with this database is keep the receipts on all these incidents,” said Jennifer Kabbany, editor of The College Fix. “Headlines come and go, so tracking these examples helps debunk any suggestion that campus cancel culture is dead.”

Launched in September 2021 with more than 1,400 entries, the database currently sits at 1,871 entries.

“The database quantifies cancel culture on campus and really gives people a clear picture of the size, breadth and scope of the problem,” Kabbany said.

Other notable campus cancelations this year include:

Vanderbilt to end ‘inherently exclusionary’ honors program

Johns Hopkins to scrub President Woodrow Wilson’s name from program

Cambridge Press drops term ‘Anglo-Saxon’ from journal

Catholic university denies request to host women’s sports activist Paula Scanlan

West Point ditches ‘Duty, Honor, Country’ from mission statement

UT Dallas removes free speech rock display, raising censorship concerns

Conservative professor gets threats after contributing to Project 2025

Crucifix, Mary statue vandalized at Georgetown

Petition demands Kansas City Chiefs fire kicker Harrison Butker for ‘discriminatory’ grad speech

Check out the entire database here. Is there a missing entry? Submit it here.

MORE: Ben Franklin statue at U. Pennsylvania defaced by pro-Hamas activists

Like The College Fix on Facebook / Follow us on Twitter