Dear Elizabeth:

Our March Belltower Times includes recognition of your excellent remarks at the Furman Bicentennial Convocation. The FFSA hopes the views you express at the Convocation can penetrate the collective minds at Furman, especially the faculty. You announce a clear vision for the university’s future: “This is our commitment: Furman is and will be a place where students learn how to think, not what to think. Where they practice listening to perspectives that challenge their own. Where they discover discomfort isn’t danger, and disagreement isn’t disrespect.”

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Similar statements at the Tocqueville CLP in October and the faculty’s declaration in April, The Lines Furman Must Not Cross, are welcome and set out admirable principles to support your vision. Nevertheless, these declarations beg a question: do they describe the reality at Furman, or aspirations for the future?

The faculty statement, while admirable in many ways, is puzzling. The faculty states that it is, “gravely concerned that our mission is in danger” and darkly points to “[g]rowing political pressure [seeking] to curtail international education, narrow institutional autonomy, restrict academic freedom, and suppress open discourse.” Who or what is the faculty talking about? It never says. “[O]ther institutions,” unnamed, have “respond[ed] to these pressures by compromising their values” and have “chill[ed] protected speech.” The faculty even writes that it “will advocate for and protect students, faculty, and staff who may be targeted due to their political beliefs.”

And yet, everyone knows that some Furman faculty let students out of class so they could join a crowd in front of the library to mob, taunt, and bully Peter Paluszak, who was engaged in an officially authorized pro-life demonstration. (This deplorable incident is covered in full here.) Along with pervasive student self-censorship, which you have eloquently recognized as a problem, this event leads me to question how worried some members of the Furman faculty really are about chilling protected speech and protecting students “targeted due to their political beliefs.”

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Still, the faculty embraces “free inquiry” as “foundational to a learning community” and lists other important principles, which we commended.

Your statements explicitly express a vision, … a standard to be achieve … and so honestly recognizes that there is still work to be done and shuns scary language about shadowy threats.

For its own future in the extremely competitive environment of small liberal arts colleges, Furman needs to take your vision seriously, so that it can increase enrollment by attracting more students from the full spectrum of political beliefs. The university should become known as the campus where viewpoint diversity is cherished as a core principle of its academic life.

Over the next year and beyond, the FFSA wants to help Furman achieve your vision. A few examples of what we plan in this respect.

• We will sponsor a student essay contest on free inquiry and academic freedom with a generous cash prize for first and second place, judged by a distinguished panel of current faculty and alumni.

• We will help Furman improve its FIRE free speech ranking, which now sits at 195th out of 248 schools. Two specific reforms will help.

  • Adopting institutional neutrality, pledging not to take sides in political controversies

  • Aligning Furman’s sexual misconduct policies with Supreme Court free speech standards

• Working with FIRE and the Furman community, the FFSA seeks to sponsor an annual debate on a genuinely difficult topic. Our goal would be to model substantive civil discourse, a goal consistent with both your vision and that of the faculty.

• FFSA will continue to advocate for the elimination of all discriminatory DEI policies and offices. The time is long past when a narrow and politicized understanding of “diversity” influences decisions on hiring, promotion, and tenure.

Furman can and should set itself apart from the community of small liberal arts universities as a campus where free speech, viewpoint diversity and academic freedom are enshrined, practiced and protected. Our goal is to help Furman achieve that status.

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Sincerely,
Jeffrey Salmon
President,
Furman Free Speech Alliance

Apologies for the duplicate message; the previous one was sent in error.

Dear Elizabeth:

I want to begin by recognizing some great service from the Furman Library. My online search for an article in the November 1971 issue of the Furman Review was unsuccessful. Exactly 43 minutes after writing the Furman library, Lauren Lundy responded with the article I needed attached in an email. Kudos to Ms. Lundy.

One of the benefits of celebrating Furman’s bicentennial is how it helps us understand the principles that have sustained the school. The Furman Free Speech Alliance consistently points to a set of challenges our alma mater faces today, urging the administration, faculty, and trustees to acknowledge these problems and confront them.

For example, we frequently highlight the need to confront the lack of viewpoint diversity on campus, the problem of student self-censorship, the difficulties of the Pathways program, enrollment and budget challenges, and more. Our reading of Furman’s past, inspired by this bicentennial year, tells us that Furman has prospered from its humble origins when it has shown courage in acknowledging and meeting roadblocks to success and when it has recognized that its future hinges on promoting free inquiry, honoring intellectual merit, and respecting the diverse ideas that arise from the pursuit of truth.

To understand what I mean, I direct your attention to Albert S. Reid’s sesquicentennial article in the Summer 1976 edition of The Furman Magazine, “Issues Resolved and Unresolved in Furman’s 150-year History”. (As an aside, I once again urge The Furman Magazine to return to its intellectually stimulating past.)

For Reid – and remember he writes in 1976 – the primary unresolved issues are “Furman’s church-related identity” and “its financial base”. Fifty years on from Reid’s article, the latter issue certainly remains, but the former was finally and firmly resolved.

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Reid’s account of the resolved issues is a short walk through Furman’s history. Some of those issues may strike us today as quaint:

• Should Furman have dorms? “[F]ear of immorality and religious heresy among students” housed together “ran strong”, he notes. Dorms were built, but for anyone who has lived in one, those concerns might appear at times to have some merit.

• Should Furman be a regional or local college? “To survive, Furman could no longer be content to be a Greenville and South Carolina college even if it wanted to be.”

• Should Furman be coeducational? “Since the 1930s, coeducation has become essential for Furman just as mixing the sexes was anathema in the earliest days.”

• Should Furman remain in Greenville, or seek a campus outside the city? Reid’s account shows how truly vexing this issue was. The question of “location… preoccupied the school for more than fifty of its 150 years.” There was clearly a bit of foot-dragging going on.

But many of the other resolved issues taken up by Reid are anything but quaint.

• “Furman [recognized] that learning and the prestige of learning depended upon the right of teachers to teach without intimidation because of personal beliefs.” I would add to Reid’s account that this “resolved” issue is always threatened to be undone in times of deep ideological division.

• Furman resolved early on that it “should have high standards based on academic excellence.”

• Furman resolved, specifically under Gordon Blackwell, that it would achieve “excellence by national standards.”

(A curious omission in Reid’s account is the resolution of the issue of racial integration, which he mentions only in the context of ongoing disputes between the Board of Trustees and the Southern Baptist Convention.)

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Reid’s history shows that, over those first 150 years, Furman confronted significant obstacles to sustaining a college grounded in the pursuit of truth, maintained by freedom of inquiry and freedom of expression.

Today’s obstacles are no less daunting for a modern university. Financial concerns remain very much on the table. But so too do issues of academic integrity, free inquiry, and robust debate.

Bending to trends such as adherence to a narrowly defined idea of “diversity”, or accepting a homogeneous political culture, will only serve to undermine the tradition of “high standards based on academic freedom” that Albert Reid celebrated in his fascinating sesquicentennial history of Furman University.

Sincerely,
Jeffrey Salmon
President
Furman Free Speech Alliance

Dear Elizabeth:

Happy New Year. This is the bicentennial year for Furman. There is much to celebrate and much to reflect upon. The FFSA looks forward to all the plans that seek out alumni participation.

I would like to begin the year with some reflections on the idea of “a whole campus culture of open inquiry,” a phrase drawn from Heterodox President John Tomasi, who joined you at the Tocqueville Forum in October and a gave a subsequent interview with the FFSA.

For a campus to support a culture of open inquiry it needs three elements says Tomasi: “First, it [needs] protections for the free exchange of ideas. Second, it [needs] a variety of viewpoints on the campus — among the faculty, students, administration, and trustees. Third, it [needs] constructive disagreement.”

One element alone is insufficient. Indeed, a campus with two of the elements, no matter how robust and imbued with institutional support they might be, will fail to build “the conditions for scholarship” at a university.

Why?

Because “if you have a university that has formal protection for the free exchange of ideas, but everyone there thinks pretty much the same way, you don’t have viewpoint diversity. If you formally protect the free exchange of ideas and you have a variety of viewpoints on the campus, but the viewpoints are all balkanized into the different groups so people aren’t listening to each other, you don’t have constructive disagreement.”

On a campus where free speech is encouraged, where there are true differences of opinion, and where disagreement is looked upon as constructive, there you have what Tomasi calls a “magical process” that creates a culture of open inquiry.

Of the three, the hardest to create is viewpoint diversity.

We know this at Furman.

Your excellent Statement on Freedom of Inquiry and Free Expression demonstrated Furman’s commitment to the first element, a culture of open inquiry through the protection of free speech. Your creation of On Discourse addresses the issue of constructive discourse by teaching skills such as active listening. Taken together, these are critical steps toward creating a campus culture of open inquiry.

But without viewpoint diversity, notes Tomasi, “‘civil dialogue’ risks becoming academic theater: earnest, well-mannered, but intellectually parochial.”

Concerns about Furman’s homogeneous political culture were a key reason we created the FFSA. (See our Mission Statement) The Paladin’s own reporting, along with a recent survey by City Journal, finds that the faculty is far less politically diverse than the student body.

The reason this matters lies at the core of what the university stands for.

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As Tomasi has written:

“the goal is not ‘balance’ for its own sake. It is to rebuild the conditions for scholarship: conditions in which bad ideas lose because better evidence comes to light, not because they are invisible (or unutterable); conditions in which students and faculty learn to evaluate arguments they dislike, not just perform tolerance; conditions in which disciplines remain curious enough to notice what they have stopped noticing.”

The lack of viewpoint diversity on campus is a major roadblock to achieving what Furman wants to achieve -- a campus culture of open inquiry.

Are there ways to address this problem? I offer two, admittedly tentative, thoughts at this point.

1. That you lead a forum on viewpoint diversity, through On Discourse or the Tocqueville Project, or both. Presidents at other universities also struggle with this issue. Invite them to campus, along with your faculty, students, administrators, trustees, and alumni, to analyze the problem and explore potential solutions.

2. As I mentioned in my last letter to you, the Furman Magazine can challenge alumni to give serious thought to campus issues. Invite Furman professors or write scholarly essays for the magazine on the topic of viewpoint diversity and the mission of the university. This would be an excellent way to start working through this issue, while bringing the expertise of your alumni to bear on this vexing problem.

All the best for the New Year,
Jeffrey Salmon
President
Furman Free Speech Alliance

It was a pleasure to speak with you and Dr. Beth Pontari after the Tocqueville Center’s discussion on The Crisis in Higher Education during Homecoming. Your remarks and those of Ben Sasse, John Tomasi, and Brent Nelsen explored some of the fundamental political, economic, and technological challenges facing colleges today. And of course, we were gratified by your recognition of the FFSA for our “doggedness” as free speech advocates.

It was refreshing to see Furman turn Homecoming into more than a celebration of cocktails, tailgates, and football—though I’m the last person to argue against those traditions.

In addition, alumni were invited to engage with lectures on presidential powers by Dr. Jim Guth, on infectious diseases by Dr. Min-Ken Liao, a symposium on sports law, and the Tocqueville CLP. Taken together, it was a remarkable and intellectually engaging weekend.

Seeing Furman showcase its academic excellence reminded me of the time, long ago when the Furman Magazine was a thoughtful, challenging publication—more of an academic journal than the usual alumni magazine, which often focused on the lighter fare.

Take, for example, Furman Magazine, Vol. 19, Issue 2 (1971). Its pages feature long, thoughtful essays on the Vietnam War, an analysis of the 25th Amendment, and an exploration of the political philosophies driving America’s divisions—all written by Furman professors and students. The cover remains unforgettable: Dr. Harrill as a diplomat, Dr. Aeisi as a judge, Dr. Walters in a toga, and Dr. Gordon draped in computer printouts. I mention this as a striking example of how Furman once engaged its alumni at a remarkably high intellectual level. It can do so again. While reviving that dense, scholarly Furman Magazine may be a bridge too far, the renewed seriousness of some Homecoming activities is an encouraging step in the right direction.

In particular, your discussion with Sasse, Tomasi, and Nelsen—asking essential questions about the university’s purpose, its future in the age of AI, and its role as a guardian of free speech—was both thought-provoking in itself and a call for alumni to consider how Furman has influenced their lives and what challenges may hinder its growth ahead.

Two suggestions:

1. Position Furman Magazine as a platform for examining the university’s central purpose: the pursuit of truth through scholarship supported by freedom of inquiry. Each issue might feature a faculty-authored article approaching that mission from a distinct disciplinary lens.

2. Broaden Homecoming’s academic offerings with sessions devoted to Furman’s vision for the future, particularly in relation to the challenges discussed in the Tocqueville forum. Engaged alumni would no doubt contribute thoughtful insights to that conversation.

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FFSA wishes you and your family a Happy Thanksgiving.

Sincerely,
Jeffrey Salmon
President
Furman Free Speech Alliance

The Furman Free Speech Alliance is looking forward to greeting you at our Homecoming tailgate tent, where we are offering top-rated Henry’s BBQ and a warm greeting from friendly campus free-speech advocates before the Paladins take on the Bulldogs. Really, we mean it! Please stop by!

We are also looking forward to the Friday Tocqueville CLP, 'The Crisis in American Higher Education,' featuring former Senator Ben Sasse, John Tomasi, President of the Heterodox Academy, and you. The FFSA will be there to show its support for what we hope will be a vigorous grappling with hard questions.

Hard questions. That is what The Tocqueville Center for the Study of Democracy and Society specializes in asking, and that is what political theory is all about. It is what Furman should strive not just to accommodate, but to encourage. More than that, Furman needs to be more welcoming of the answers one gets from asking hard questions.

The latest survey of Furman students by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, which FFSA has covered extensively, demonstrates that your students are fearful of speaking up. These findings are virtually identical to those over the last two years. But Furman has shown no interest in the problem of student self-censorship.

Nevertheless, you have recently taken two steps that offer hope of a greater openness to viewpoint diversity.

First, Furman has posted a position for a tenure-track professor in classical liberal thought, who will also serve as assistant director of the Tocqueville Center. The Center has needed this position for years, and the students have required that professor in classical thought. Without the full support of the administration, the Center will never be able to resist forces on the faculty that seek to crush the study of political theory and the Center’s “intellectual community devoted to seeking the truth about the moral and philosophic questions at the heart of political life.”

We applaud this posting, which demonstrates your support for the Center's goals.

Second, as I have noted more than once, Dean of the Faculty Jeremy Cass informed me exactly a year ago that Furman has no intention of abandoning its required diversity, equity, and inclusion statement for faculty hiring. Fortunately, however, that statement has been largely eliminated.

In a recent letter to you, I noted this change and the positive effects it will have on recruiting the very best faculty. When recruitment is politicized, it prioritizes adherence to an ideology over the best interests of the students. It is welcome that in this recruitment for a position with the Tocqueville Center – as with other faculty postings – ideological litmus tests have been largely, if not entirely, removed.

Regrettably, recruitments still include politicized buzz words, as you ask “candidates to explain how their teaching philosophy contributes to a community that 'honors inquiry, promotes diversity, [and] strives for equity.” Why not just ask candidates to explain how they would contribute to viewpoint diversity? This would be a way to ensure that the faculty becomes a body dedicated to free speech and rigorous questioning of stifling orthodoxies.

Still, these are two steps for which Furman can justly take credit.

Can you build on these steps? Here are two ideas.

1. Challenge your administration and faculty, maybe even ask your Bain Capital consultants, to identify specific policies and programs that will make Furman a nationally recognized leader in campus free speech and the standard for free and vigorous inquiry in scholarship and teaching.

2. Monthly, have private discussions with a few students on the topic of campus free speech and student self-censorship. Use Chatham House Rules; students will appreciate that you have trusted them to follow the Chatham House guidelines, and it will demonstrate your openness to listening to their voices. And I wager, you will learn a great deal.

Looking forward to seeing you at Homecoming.

Sincerely,

Jeffrey Salmon
President
Furman Free Speech Alliance

The FFSA hopes the start of the school year is going well. Many of us hope to join the festivities at Homecoming in October, and we all anticipate a Paladin victory over The Citadel.

And most of all, we invite you to join us for some superb BBQ at our tent before the game.

Last week, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression released its annual college free speech rankings. We will cover its findings in a separate post. Here, I want to ask you some questions about student self-censorship and its causes.

A couple of highlights from the survey:

• Sixty-three percent of respondents said they self-censor during conversations with professors, occasionally (38%), fairly often (19%), or very often (6%). This is up from 49% in last year’s survey.

• Sixty-seven percent of respondents said they self-censor during classroom discussions occasionally (43%), fairly often (19%), or very often (5%). That is up slightly from 61% in last year’s survey.

• Forty-six percent of respondents said they would feel very or somewhat uncomfortable expressing views on a controversial topic during an in-class discussion, down from 54% in the 2024 survey.

Of equal interest are student comments given in the survey. “I am scared to speak on my politics in public settings, mostly due to fear of backlash from my peers,” said one Paladin.

There is some very good news as well.

That’s an impressive number in which you can justifiably take pride.

Still, by any measure, these findings on self-censorship are disturbing. All this begs the question: Why do Furman students self-censor? The survey itself suggests, as do the verbal responses, that fear of ostracism and negative peer reaction is a significant factor.

But those who study this matter point to other possible causes.

1. Academic Disengagement. Students may tend to have a transactional view of college; it’s where you build your resume, not where you explore the deepest questions and refine and enlarge your ability to think. If that’s the attitude, why bother engaging in a debate over ideas?

2. The Campus Culture Discourages Dissent. Another possible explanation is the existence of a largely monochromatic political culture on campus. Samantha Hedges, the Bipartisan Policy Center, and many others examine this cultural problem in detail. Furman should pay attention.

The case of Senior Peter Paluszak, which we covered in detail here, is an example of what these researchers have found. Peter was mobbed and ridiculed by his fellow students during his authorized pro-life demonstration. Professors are known to have let their students out of class to join the demonstration. Tolerance, open discourse, community of learners: there was none of that at Furman that day. And not a peep out of the Administration.

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I conclude with one request: that your administration show a modicum of curiosity about student self-censorship. I offer no conclusion on its source; I only suggest that Furman can be a model for other colleges by leading an effort to understand the root causes of self-censorship and developing a response.

Sincerely,

Jeffrey Salmon
President
Furman Free Speech Alliance

We wish you all the best as you welcome students back to campus and participate in orientation for the class of 2029.

I write this month with a question: Has Furman changed its faculty hiring practices? As FFSA has argued in considerable detail on our website and in a previous open letter to you, Furman’s requirement that applicants for faculty positions submit mandatory diversity statements is a political litmus test that amounts to compelled speech. It violates fundamental free speech rights and restricts Furman’s ability to attract high-caliber candidates by prioritizing adherence to DEI ideology over academic excellence.

Your Dean of Faculty, Jeremy Cass, is on record in an email stating that Furman has no plans to change this requirement.

However, contrast an announcement posted last year for an Assistant/Associate Professor of Accounting with an opening for a tenure-track computer scientist posted just a few weeks ago.

Last year, Furman required:

“a diversity statement which describes how the candidate's teaching, scholarship, mentoring, and/or service might contribute to a liberal arts college community that includes a commitment to diversity as one of its core values (see https://www.furman.edu/diversity-equity-inclusion/)....”

Today, a candidate must submit:

“a letter of interest, C.V., statement of teaching philosophy, statement of research, and complete contact information for three references. The statement of teaching philosophy should describe your inclusive teaching and mentoring efforts, broadly conceived, and how your teaching and mentoring may contribute to a liberal arts and sciences community that aims, among other things, to “honor inquiry, promote diversity, [and] strive for equity” (FUture Focused).”

It seems that Furman has at least abandoned the required DEI statement in favor of more legitimate concerns, such as teaching philosophy and research interests, along with how the candidate’s teaching would “honor inquiry, promote diversity, and strive for equity.”

Plus, candidates are now prompted to seek guidance from your strategic plan — FUture Focused — rather than DEI pages on Furman’s website.

That was a necessary change since those DEI pages no longer exist; one of the many behind-the-scenes alterations made to soften the harder edges of Furman’s unambiguous adherence to DEI ideology.

Nevertheless, I want to applaud you. Abandoning the required DEI statement for hiring and assigning the DEI web pages to the memory hole are steps in the right direction. You should announce this publicly and take the credit that you deserve.

Still, the demand for candidates to explain how their teaching philosophy contributes to a community that “honors inquiry, promotes diversity, [and] strive for equity,” is a clear signal that Furman remains wedded to the politically loaded language of diversity and equity. Especially after consulting FUture Focus, candidates will know what they must write — and must not write — to fit into Furman’s DEI pigeonhole.

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It is long past time for Furman to completely abandon this policy and adopt a better approach. It would help, for example, if Furman inserted a specific request in the job description for candidates to explain how they would contribute to viewpoint diversity. This would be a way to ensure that the faculty becomes a body dedicated to free speech and rigorous questioning of stifling orthodoxies.

Another issue, which I intend to take up in a future Open Letter, is how these hiring conditions square with your faculty’s statement, The Lines Furman Must Not Cross, which argues that Furman “exists not to serve ideology, but to pursue truth through open, critical, and disciplined inquiry.” Doesn’t a compulsory pledge to a particular political viewpoint contradict these sentiments?

A year ago, we wrote that “An excellent first step” for your administration would be “getting rid of mandatory DEI statements and adopting apolitical hiring policies.”

Furman has done the former. It has work to do on the latter.

Sincerely,

Jeffrey Salmon
President
Furman Free Speech Alliance

*Editor’s note: One quick correction from our Belltower Times last week.

We wrote that Furman got “downgraded.” But a downgrade is an actual rating change, different from a change in outlook. So, it was inaccurate to say that Furman got a "downgrade." But a rating change will follow if Furman doesn't improve its enrollment metrics.

I hope you and your family are enjoying a restful summer. I also want to congratulate you on a successful commencement weekend, highlighted by Kristin Huguet Quayle’s outstanding address.

With this letter, I begin a monthly communication on behalf of the Furman Free Speech Alliance (FFSA). My aim is to share reflections on campus culture and academic freedom, highlight developments we think may be of interest to you, and offer insights drawn from our work as alumni committed to Furman’s highest ideals.

As you know from our open letters and published commentary, the FFSA has both praised and critiqued Furman’s handling of free expression. We’ve applauded the Statement on Freedom of Inquiry and Expression and the launch of On Discourse—both meaningful steps. At the same time, we have raised concerns about a campus climate marked by self-censorship and institutional policies that inhibit free speech.

Since our founding in January 2024, we’ve grown into a vital source of information and advocacy. We have also learned a great deal. In the spirit of Furman’s liberal arts tradition—and the belief that all of us should remain lifelong students—let me share five key lessons:

1. 📣 Alumni are starved for real information about campus life.
   Alumni are often surprised, dismayed, or incredulous when they hear from FFSA about the free speech challenges at Furman. Who else was going to report on the mobbing – encouraged by some faculty – of a student while engaged in an authorized pro-life demonstration in front of the library? Alumni want all the news about the campus; they want above all transparency from the administration, faculty and Board of Trustees. We have learned we can fill that need, we have learned we might be the only ones even attempting to fill that need.

2. 🧩Campus culture is more nuanced than it might appear.
   Furman is not monolithic. While ideological conformity is real, there are countervailing forces committed to intellectual rigor and genuine openness. The FFSA will always encourage you to resist ideological monoculture and to support a genuine competition of ideas.

3. 🏢 Furman’s DEI Bureaucracy Is Larger Than We Imagined
   We’ve noted recent changes in office titles and reporting lines, which make it difficult for outsiders—even engaged alumni—to understand how power operates within the administration. Transparency is critical. We also believe Furman should consider the legal and financial risks posed by the growth of this bureaucracy—risks already materializing at peer institutions.

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4. 🤐 Student Self-Censorship Is Running Rampant
   Surveys of university students nationwide reveal a troubling pattern: many fear disagreeing with professors on hot-button issues or being ostracized by peers for expressing dissenting views—even in casual conversations. We’ve learned this dynamic exists at Furman to a frightening degree. But is fear the only explanation? Or is some of this self-censorship tied to a deeper intellectual disengagement among students? Either way, the FFSA believes the university should show genuine curiosity about the roots of this silence—because neither answer is particularly reassuring.

5. 🔗 Being Part of a National Alumni Free Speech Network Is a Source of Strength

   As a member of the Alumni Free Speech Alliance, FFSA joins Davidson, Yale, Princeton, Wofford, the University of Virginia, Williams, and other independent alumni organizations supporting free speech, academic freedom, and viewpoint diversity at their alma maters. The exchange of information between these group is invaluable. Moreover, the impact of newer groups like the FFSA is amplified and accelerated through this national association.

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Apart from what the FFSA has learned over the last months, we trust you have also seen that our primary goal is to see Furman grow in national stature as an outstanding contributor to the advancement of knowledge, driven by a fundamental and unwavering dedication to free expression and free inquiry.

You will find us to be your strongest ally when it comes to advancing academic freedom, diversity of thought, and open debate.

Sincerely,

Jeffrey Salmon
President
Furman Free Speech Alliance