Photo Credit: Reddit
By: Wesley Liu
Penn’s new speech rules promise neutrality. Students are asking who gets to decide.
The University of Pennsylvania is continuing to revise its Guidelines on Open Expression amid concerns from students and faculty over transparency, administrative authority, and enforcement.
Penn’s existing guidelines describe the freedom to “hear, express, and debate various views” as a “fundamental right” of members of the university community. They also prohibit restricting demonstrations based on viewpoint, stating that “the substance or nature of the views expressed is not an appropriate basis for any restriction upon or encouragement of an assembly or a demonstration.”
The proposed changes come amid broader concerns about Penn’s campus speech climate, raising questions about whether giving administrators greater authority over open-expression disputes would address existing problems or create new ones.
The university began reconsidering those rules following campus controversies over protests and demonstrations in recent years. Penn released proposed revisions earlier this year and has since solicited feedback from students, faculty, and other members of the university community.
The revisions come as survey data indicate that Penn students hold substantially different political views and that some students are afraid to express themselves.
According to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression’s 2027 College Free Speech Rankings, there are approximately 4.6 liberal students for every conservative student at Penn. Fifty-three percent of surveyed Penn students reported self-censoring at least once or twice per month, and FIRE gave Penn an ‘F’ speech-climate grade.
FIRE also ranked Penn in the bottom 25 universities for students’ comfort expressing ideas and self-censorship, and in the bottom 50 for perceived administrative support for free expression. According to the survey, 78% of Penn respondents considered shouting down a speaker acceptable in at least rare circumstances, while 34% said the same about using violence to prevent someone from speaking.
Beyond the survey, FIRE documented five speech controversies involving Penn, including three in 2026. Among them was an attempted disruption of a campus appearance by conservative commentator Ben Shapiro. The organization also identified controversies involving pro-Palestinian student expression, indicating that concerns over speech restrictions extend across political viewpoints.
FIRE’s survey does not establish that Penn administrators discriminate against conservative students, but the ideological disparity has contributed to broader debates over whether University speech policies are sufficiently clear and applied consistently across political viewpoints.
A focus of the current debate is the role administrators would play under revised guidelines.
Penn’s existing policy establishes a Committee on Open Expression responsible for interpreting the guidelines, mediating disputes, and recommending changes. It also states that when another University policy conflicts with the principles of open expression, the open-expression principles “shall take precedence.”
Under the proposed revisions, the Committee on Open Expression would become an advisory body, while an executive director would oversee open-expression matters and report to the provost. The committee would also decrease from 17 members to 13, and members would be approved by the provost.
The executive director would oversee Penn’s Open Expression Observer Program and determine which events require observers based on the anticipated likelihood of disruption.
Those changes have faced opposition from some faculty members.
In June, the Faculty Senate Executive Committee rejected the proposed revisions, writing that they would “radically shift authority toward the Provost’s Office” and give the office “exclusive authority to interpret and enforce the guidelines while relegating COE to an advisory role.”
The Faculty Senate committee also called on Penn to release the recommendations of the Task Force on Open Expression, which helped develop the proposed changes.
The task force consulted with campus groups during the 2024-25 academic year, and the Committee on Open Expression approved a draft of its recommendations in February 2025. Those recommendations have not been publicly released.
Instead, Penn published proposed guidelines and sought feedback through an anonymous survey, listening sessions, and meetings with student and faculty organizations.
According to the University’s summary of that process, Penn received 193 survey and email submissions. The summary acknowledged concerns from community members about a “lack of openness to feedback,” questions about how the task force’s recommendations informed the proposed guidelines, and dissatisfaction that complete transcripts from listening sessions would not be released.
Penn has since extended the review process and said it plans to release another draft.
Provost John Jackson Jr. has called open expression a “bedrock principle” of the University and said Penn is seeking a policy that protects expression while providing “institutional expectations around clarity and campus safety.”
Committee on Open Expression Chair Phil Nichols has also said the committee intends to explain how community feedback informed subsequent revisions.
Questions have also focused on the language Penn could use to distinguish protected expression from prohibited disruption.
One provision of the proposed guidelines states that community members may violate open-expression principles when they “interfere unreasonably with the regular activities of others.”
Undergraduate Assembly President Musab Chummun raised concerns about how such language could be interpreted.
“If the University can restrict speech without clear justification, the application of open expression becomes inconsistently applied and subject to bias,” Chummun told The Daily Pennsylvanian.
The debate continued at a September gathering organized by Penn’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors, where faculty, staff, and students discussed the proposed guidelines. Participants raised questions about the definition of “disruption,” the role of administrators in enforcing the policy, and the process through which the revisions were developed.
“All everybody wants is to understand and have some sort of transparency on how this document will be governing our lives and our expression,” Wharton junior Kayuga de Guzman said at the gathering.
The revisions are occurring against a broader debate at Penn over political expression and institutional neutrality. The University’s existing guidelines expressly reject viewpoint as a basis for restricting expression, while the proposed changes would alter the administrative structure responsible for interpreting and enforcing those protections.
For conservative students, who represent a minority of Penn’s student political population according to FIRE’s survey, the final wording and enforcement procedures could determine how much discretion administrators have when responding to controversial political expression.
Penn has not yet finalized the revised guidelines. The University is expected to release another version following its review of community feedback, leaving unresolved questions about the authority of the Committee on Open Expression, the role of the provost’s office, and the standards Penn will use to distinguish protected expression from disruption.
Wesley Liu is a Junior studying Philosophy with a minor in Political Science from San Francisco, CA. He is also the opinion editor at the Penn Post. His email is wesl@sas.upenn.edu
