Texas State tumbles in free speech ranking

How it works: FIRE and College Pulse, a digital survey research and analytics company, surveyed nearly 63,000 students and incorporated campus speech policies and recent controversies.

By the numbers: Texas State fell from No. 112 last year to No. 259 out of 261 schools this year, the largest year-over-year decline in FIRE's ranking.

• Texas A&M dropped 145 spots to No. 192.
• Texas Tech also fell sharply to No. 193.
• UT Austin improved its overall score and moved up in the ranking to 124, though FIRE still gave its campus speech climate a D-.

Zoom in: FIRE attributed Texas State's sharp decline to several incidents over the last year, including the firing of a tenured professor over an off-campus political talk and the expulsion of a student who mocked Charlie Kirk's assassination.

• Texas A&M also recorded one of the country's largest declines, which FIRE attributed in part to students' declining perceptions of "administrative support," and the firing of lecturer Melissa McCoul after a student secretly recorded a class discussion involving gender identity.