College free speech is struggling in the heartland

By the numbers: The ranking comes from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), a nonprofit that defends campus free speech.

• Mizzou ranks 30th of 261 schools with a C-, the best of the four, but fell 14 places. K-State is 35th, also a C-, down 10.

• UMKC, part of the University of Missouri System, ranks 81st with a D. It fell 139 places for "openness," meaning students find more topics off-limits.
• KU ranks 111th with a D-, up 66 spots from last year's F. It sits in the bottom 25 for both comfort expressing ideas and self-censorship.
• Of every ten students, roughly three to four say they self-censor at least once or twice a month.

Zoom out: Three of the schools' downward trends are at odds with the national average, which rose to its best score in seven years.

Yes, but: Colleges nationwide still averaged a D-, FIRE found in a survey of nearly 63,000 undergraduates at 262 schools.

• Students called the Israeli-Palestinian conflict the hardest topic to discuss, followed by President Trump.

Zoom in: FIRE found no speech controversies at any of the four schools this year, and none punished a student or professor over speech.

• All four have adopted the Chicago Statement on free expression. KU and UMKC hold "yellow light" ratings for policies FIRE says could restrict speech. Mizzou and K-State are "green."

Stunning stat: At K-State, 40% of students say using violence to stop a speaker is acceptable at least in rare cases. It's 32% at KU and Mizzou and 26% at UMKC.

What's next: FIRE wants colleges like KU and UMKC to rewrite student policies to earn "green light" ratings and all four schools to adopt institutional neutrality, meaning the university itself stays out of political debates.