Author discusses cancel culture at Free Speech Week | News

Greg Lukianoff spoke about free speech and cancel culture in his keynote address for OU’s Free Speech Week on Tuesday.

Lukianoff, author and president and CEO of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expressionspoke about FIRE’s ranking of free speech trends. Lukianoff said the rankings assess how well American universities adhere to the First Amendment.

“We give schools a green, yellow or red light,” Lukianoff said. “Red lights are ridiculously unconstitutional, green lights are no problem at all.”

The Free Expression Ranking Report 2025carried out by FIRE and College pulse surveyed 58,807 students at 257 universities.

According to the survey results, OU ranked 51st out of 251 schools in the 2025 report.

Lukianoff said 78% of students surveyed in the survey said it was at least rarely acceptable to yell at a speaker.

“So the statement ‘rarely acceptable’ may actually refer to exactly how often a controversial speaker is invited,” Lukianoff said. “Controversial speakers are generally rarely invited.”

He said 36% of students at OU believe violence is rarely, sometimes or always acceptable to prevent speech, and half of students practice self-censorship at least once or twice a month.

In 2021, FIRE criticized OU in an article for a workshop “Antiracist Rhetoric and Pedagogy”. delivered by an OU professor. While the workshop was voluntary, FIRE wrote that the workshop taught participants how to limit free speech among students. FIRE then posted a Recording of the workshop to your YouTube account.

After the article and video were published in 2021, Julie Ward, vice president of the OU American Association of University Professors, criticized FIRE, saying its actions left OU faculty members vulnerable to online hate.

Michael Givel, president of the OU AAUP chapter, said FIRE’s view of free speech leans toward an absolutist view of the First Amendment.

“For FIRE to talk about cancel culture — which I understand is the topic of this keynote — is ironic, to say the least,” Givel said. “The idea that you can pretty much enter a competition in terms of speech that’s about free speech, or basically copy someone’s speech and put it online or whatever, is the epitome of that Cancel culture. “Someone should look in the mirror.”

During the speech, Lukianoff said that 68% of students at all colleges evaluated think it is acceptable to yell at a speaker at a certain level.

“Those numbers should be closer to 0% or maybe 3%,” Lukianoff said. “When you get to the point where two-thirds of students think it’s okay to shout, that’s a massive failure of education, of what higher education is all about. Shout downs are mob censorship.”

Lukianoff said violence is the “counterpart of speech” and recalled one of the worst cases he knew of, involving a former Israel Defense Forces member Evacuation from the University of California, Berkeley campus due to students shouting down the speech. In February, Lukianoff wrote an article about the incident and stated that violent students should be expelled from school.

Lukianoff said last year was the worst year he has ever seen for free speech and he believes this year will be even worse.

“Last year was the worst deplatforming year we have ever experienced in our history. … This includes attempts at dispersal, but also a large number of shouting matches, especially after October 7th, but also a lot before,” Lukianoff said. “Things certainly weren’t rosy for free speech on campus before October 7th.”

Deplatforming means to prevent someone from expressing themselves on social media.

Lukianoff spoke about what he calls the “conformity gauntlet,” in which students who want to become professors face various pressures that lead them to self-censor later in life once they have achieved a higher position in academia .

Lukianoff said professors also face pressure to conform because they fear being reported by students for offensive speech. Lukianoff referred to a study by researchers at North Dakota State University It found that 70% of independent, 85% liberal, and 56% conservative students would report a professor for offensive comments to a bias incident program.

Lukianoff also spoke about cancel culture. Cancel culture refers to the termination of public support for a person or organization following a scandal or public incident. Accordingly FIRE websiteCancel culture is when people organize against a person who has said something that is considered offensive.

Lukianoff mentioned several cases of people being canceled, including the story of Carole Hooven, a former Harvard evolutionary biologist. Hooven faced a backlash after I said that there are only two genders in an interview with Fox Newswhat led to this her withdrawal from Harvard.

“Let me be clear: the threats against professors’ speech are historic,” Lukianoff said. “There is no parallel to this in history that we know of in terms of numbers or percentages.”

Lukianoff pointed to data from FIRE Scholars Under Fire databasethat over 1,000 professors have been targeted or punished for their freedom of speech. Lukianoff said of those scientists, about 200 were fired from their positions between 2014 and 2023.

Payden Morgan, an English junior, said his main takeaway from the speech was that someone’s rejection can affect more than just the person’s career.

“The fact that this can affect their family and their personal life. I never thought about that as a student,” Morgan said. “That was such an eye-opening thing.”

Joel Dixon, a graduate student in regional urban planning and public administration, said he was disappointed that attendees couldn’t ask questions after the speech and said it was difficult to submit questions about a speech before he heard it.

Dixon had several questions he wanted to ask Lukianoff and felt he had more questions than answers after the speech.

“We talk a lot about cancel culture,” Dixon said. “How is cancel culture different from the social consequences of unpopular ideas and opinions?”

This story was edited by Anusha Fathepure, Ismael Lele and Ana Barboza. Mary Ann Livingood and Grace Rhodes copied this story.