Caltech Ranks 111th in 2025 FIRE Free Speech College Rankings

In a recent national survey of 257 colleges and universities, Caltech ranked overall 111th. 92 Caltech undergrads were surveyed on a number of questions including how often they felt the need to “self-censor,” their comfort expressing their views on different topics, and administrative support. The report was published by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), a nonpartisan group supporting free speech on college campuses. The data in this report were collected between January 25th and June 17, 2024.

The majority of Caltech is liberal with a 16:1 ratio of liberals to conservatives. Caltech scored highly on openness (5th) and comfort expressing ideas (23rd) both of which deal with how willing students are to have conversations about political or controversial topics on campus with peers or professors. However, this is possibly skewed by the predominantly liberal majority.

Caltech scored very low in disruptive conduct (248th), a measure of how willing students are to shout down, block entrance, perform violence to stop controversial speakers. 16 percent of Caltech respondents said it was never acceptable to shout down a speaker to prevent them from speaking on campus compared to 32 percent nationally. 20 percent of Caltech respondents said it was never acceptable to block or prevent other students from attending a campus speech compared to 48 percent nationally. 53 percent of Caltech respondents said it was never acceptable to use violence to stop a campus speaker compared to 68 percent nationally. For all 3 of these questions the answer choices were “never acceptable,” “rarely acceptable,” “sometimes acceptable,” and “always acceptable.” In all three questions the majority of students who did not select never acceptable said it was only rarely acceptable (41%, 49%, and 31% respectively).

Caltech also ranked low in administrative support (204th) with only 25% of students responding that it was either “extremely clear” or “very clear” (4% and 21% respectively) that Caltech administration protects free speech on campus. This is compared with 34% of students responding this way nationally (7% and 27% respectively). 20% of Caltech students said it was “not very clear” and 9% said it was “not clear at all” that Caltech administration protects free speech on campus. In addition to this, Caltech’s free speech policy received a “red light” rating based on a stoplight system. The red light indicates that institute policy prioritizes other values over a commitment to free speech.

President Rosenbaum states that “Caltech aims to create an environment where all members of our community are empowered to speak out about issues that matter to them, and we support their freedom and ability to do so. We want all members of our community to feel free to take stances that may be unpopular, but reflect who they are and what they believe, without an official Institute opinion quenching that ability.”

The survey also asked questions about whether speakers on certain controversial topics should be let on campus, 3 questions about liberal speakers and 3 on conservative speakers. 28% of respondents said that Caltech should definitely or probably (72% said probably or definitely should not) allow a speaker on campus who had previously expressed the idea that “transgender people have a mental disorder.” 38% said that Caltech should definitely or probably allow a speaker who had expressed that “abortion should be completely illegal.” 25% said the same about a speaker who had expressed that “black lives matters is a hate group.” Caltech ranks 197th for tolerance for conservative speakers. 58% of Caltech respondents said that Caltech should definitely or probably allow a speaker who had expressed that “the Catholic church is a pedophilic institution.” 49% said the same about a speaker who had said “the police are just as racist as the KKK.” 65% said the same about a speaker who had expressed that “children should be able to transition without parental consent.” Caltech ranked 87th for tolerance of liberal speakers and 209th overall for tolerance difference between liberal and conservative speakers.

Caltech’s free speech ranking went up compared to last year and overall, there has been an upward trend in free speech on campuses across the US over the last 5 years FIRE has run this survey. However, the Isreal-Palestine conflict has been not good for free speech on campuses, causing many college administrations to change their free speech codes or deplatform student scholars in response to attempts to use free speech. While students’ willingness to talk about most controversial topics has gone up the past few years, the percent of students identifying the conflict as a difficult topic to talk about went up from 26% in 2023 to 55% in 2024.