Universities Are Enabling America's Press Freedom Collapse
Professor Derek Peterson said nothing wrong. That’s exactly why the University of Michigan punished him
May 3 was World Press Freedom Day—a celebration of free expression and speech.
On May 2, Professor Derek Peterson stood before the graduating class of the University of Michigan and delivered an inspiring commencement address, one that will be remembered—not because it was radical, but because it is now censored.
Professor Peterson is no ordinary faculty member. He is a historian, an African Studies scholar, a MacArthur Genius Grant recipient, and the outgoing chair of the Faculty Senate. He is, by any measure, precisely the kind of voice a university should be proud to elevate at its most ceremonial moment.
So what did Professor Peterson say at commencement that was so egregious? So egregious that it motivated the University of Michigan President to remove his remarks from the University website, remove the entire commencement ceremony in which he spoke, issue a formal letter of apology to the public, and distance himself and the University from Professor Peterson? The disturbing answer reflects a growing trend of censorship and collapsing press freedom nationally and internationally.
Let’s Address This.
What Professor Peterson Said
Here is what Professor Peterson said—in full—about the students who have spent the past two years speaking up for Palestinian lives:
Sing for the pro-Palestinian student activists who have, over these past two years, opened our hearts to the injustice and inhumanity of Israel’s war in Gaza. The greatness of this institution does not only rest on the shoulders and on the accomplishments of our student-athletes who deserve all the congratulations we can offer them. But the greatness of this university rests also on the courage and the conviction of student activists who have pushed this university down the path towards justice.
Preceding these remarks, Professor Peterson celebrated three other iconic voices. Sarah Burger — the suffragette who fought to open Michigan’s doors to women. Moritz Levi — the first Jewish professor at Michigan, who opened those same doors to generations of Jewish students fleeing antisemitism at East Coast universities. And the Black Action Movement students who demanded a curriculum reflecting Black identity and experience.
But it was Professor Peterson’s additional recognition of all students who spoke up for Palestinians—Jewish and Muslim, Christian and atheist, Black, brown, and white—that enraged the University of Michigan. Professor Peterson dared place Palestinian solidarity and activism in its precise historical context—that of a long and honorable tradition of students refusing to accept the injustices of their time.
These are his full remarks:
For this, University of Michigan President Domenico Grasso issued a public apology on behalf of the entire university for Professor Peterson’s remarks. The speech was scrubbed from the university’s website. President Grasso’s letter states in part:
At today’s U-M spring commencement ceremony, our outgoing Faculty Senate Chair made remarks regarding the Israel-Palestine conflict that were hurtful and insensitive to many members of our community. We regret the pain this has caused on a day devoted to celebration and accomplishment. For this, the university apologizes. Make no mistake, we will not allow a 30-second soundbite to tear down the goodwill that so many on our campus have worked to build.
Let’s be precise about what just happened. A MacArthur Genius who celebrated Jewish students, Black students, women, and Palestinian solidarity activists in the same speech was publicly reprimanded, had his speech erased from the public record, and was subjected to a university apology that treats the mere mention of Palestinian humanity as something requiring institutional contrition.
There was no apology when Professor Peterson elevated Jewish students. To do so would be absurd. No apology when he elevated Black students. No apology when he celebrated women. The apology came exclusively for the Palestinians.
That is not a coincidence. That is a policy. It is one of the most explicit demonstrations of institutionalized xenophobia in recent American academic history. Sadly, and perhaps even more frighteningly, this is not the exception in the United States today.
The University of Michigan Is Not Alone
What happened to Professor Peterson is part of a rapidly accelerating national pattern that should alarm every American who believes in free expression, regardless of where they stand on any particular political question.
Commencement ceremonies at several universities have undergone a post-October 7 overhaul, with some students saying their free speech rights are being suppressed. There will be no live student speakers at CUNY School of Law or at NYU’s school-specific ceremonies, after former students gave speeches that were fiercely critical of Israel. The restrictions have prompted an ongoing lawsuit brought by CUNY law students who allege violations of their First Amendment rights. “We have our voice taken away in what’s supposed to be our biggest moment,” said CUNY Law’s student government president.
NYU will no longer allow live student speeches at school-level commencement ceremonies, instead requiring remarks to be pre-recorded and approved in advance. The change follows controversy over a 2025 commencement speech by student Logan Rozos, who accused Israel of committing genocide— prompting the university to withhold his diploma.
Read that again: a university withheld a student’s diploma for a commencement speech, because that student called out genocide.
Columbia University, which was at the center of the pro-Palestinian student movement, cancelled its university-wide commencement altogether in 2024.
The American Association of University Professors has long held that academic freedom—the faculty’s right to speak freely—is the “indispensable requisite for unfettered teaching and research in institutions of higher education.” Universities are not merely buildings where credentials are distributed. They are, by design and by historic purpose, the spaces where orthodoxies are challenged, where power is interrogated, and where the next generation learns that the pursuit of truth requires the courage to speak it.
We are instead witnessing the systematic dismantling of that purpose. And not by fringe actors—but by university presidents, boards of trustees, and administrators who have decided that protecting Israel from criticism matters more than protecting the foundational principles of higher education itself.
The hypocrisy is not subtle. These are the same institutions that proudly invoke free speech when hosting conservative provocateurs, far-right commentators, and speakers whose records include documented bigotry against a range of communities. The principle of free expression, it turns out, has a very specific carve-out: it ends the moment a Palestinian life is mentioned with empathy.
America Is Collapsing on Press Freedom
But this phenomenon on university campuses does not exist in isolation. It is part of a broader, documented, accelerating collapse of press freedom in the United States that should be front page news — and conspicuously is not.
According to the 2026 World Press Freedom Index published by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), the United States dropped seven places to 64th—its lowest ranking ever. RSF attributed the decline to the Trump administration’s “systematic” attacks on press freedom (including the detention and deportation of journalists), the “drastic reduction” in funding for US international broadcasting, efforts to dismantle public broadcasters, and the use of government agencies and lawsuits to punish media outlets critical of the administration. Clayton Weimers, Executive Director of RSF’s North America section, stated:
The US has experienced a steady decline in the RSF Index over the past decade, but President Trump is pouring gasoline on the fire. Trump and his administration have carried out a coordinated war on press freedom since the day he took office, and we will live with the consequences for years to come.
This collapse is not happening in a vacuum. For the first time in the history of the RSF World Press Freedom Index, over half of the world’s countries now fall into the “difficult” or “very serious” categories for press freedom. In 25 years, the average score of all 180 countries and territories surveyed has never been so low.
The percentage of the global population living in countries where press freedom is rated “good” has dropped dramatically—from 20% in 2002 to less than 1% in 2026. This is a global emergency. And it is global in the most literal sense—crossing every political and religious boundary.
Vladimir Putin’s Russia, ranked 172nd, has become a specialist in using laws designed to combat terrorism, separatism, and extremism to restrict press freedom. As of April 2026, Russia held 48 journalists behind bars. Saudi Arabia executed reporter Turki al-Jasser, and the brutal murder of Jamal Kashoggi will forever stain all those who turned a blind eye. Iran, ranked 177th, remains near the bottom of the index, with the regime’s ongoing crackdown on journalists. India has fallen to 157th place, with RSF describing intensifying judicial harassment of independent media through defamation statutes and national security laws.
Press freedom is not collapsing because of any one religion, culture, or political system. It is collapsing because power—wherever it concentrates, whatever flag it flies—instinctively moves to silence the voices that hold it accountable. Additionally, as I wrote last week, Israel has killed more journalists than have been killed in all global conflicts combined over the past two and a half years. Yet, Israel remains the only nation for which 39 U.S. states have criminalized its boycott. This continued suppression of free speech helps no one but those seeking autocratic power. This is why we must talk about Palestine, and why Professor Peterson’s case is so critical to this discussion.
The Gaza Press Freedom Crisis Corporate Media Won’t Name
No honest accounting of the global press freedom collapse can omit what has happened in Gaza—the single most catastrophic assault on journalism in modern recorded history.
Since October 2023, more than 235 journalists have been killed in Gaza, according to the International Federation of Journalists. Israel has banned all international media and journalists from entering the territory. It has bombed press offices. It has killed reporters with their press credentials clearly displayed. It has done so with American weapons, American funding, and American diplomatic cover. Israel has killed more journalists in less than three years than were killed in the 24 years of World War II and the Vietnam War combined. And corporate media has covered virtually none of it with the sustained outrage it deserves.
Democratic Congressman Dan Goldman has posted publicly about the importance of protecting journalists and defending world press freedom. He has not, to date, issued a single condemnation of Israel’s killing of nearly 300 journalists in Gaza. Not one.
This is not an oversight. It explains University of Michigan’s response to Professor Peterson. It demonstrates the systemic nature of the collapse of press freedom.
Corporate media, for its part, continues to cover this genocide while sanitizing the language used to describe it, ignoring the journalist death toll, and treating the targeting of press freedom in Gaza as a sidebar rather than the central story it is.
This is a genocide acknowledged by the United Nations, the International Criminal Court, the International Court of Justice, Israeli scholars like Omer Bartov, and Israeli human rights organizations including B’Tselem and Israeli Physicians for Human Rights. The evidence is not in dispute among those who have examined it honestly. What lacks in our institutions, universities, media organizations, and elected officials lack, is courage and integrity to say so.
Professor Derek Peterson had that courage. And the University of Michigan is punishing him for it.
Take Action: Demand the University of Michigan Restore Professor Peterson’s Speech
University of Michigan President Domenico Grasso’s actions against Professor Peterson represent a direct violation of academic freedom, a falsification of the public record, and an explicit act of institutionalized discrimination. A shameful act that treats Palestinian humanity as dispensable.
This cannot stand without consequence. And the most immediate consequence available to us is a clear, direct, and public demand for accountability.
Email University of Michigan President Domenico Grasso and senior University officials at the below emails:
President Grasso, grasso@umich.edu
Provost McCauley, mccauley@umich.edu
Regent Bernstein, mbernstein@sambernstein.com
General Counsel Lynch, timlynch@umich.edu
Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs (SACUA), sacua@umich.edu
Keep your email short and to the point, make it your own. Ensure it covers these three points:
1. Immediately restore Professor Peterson’s commencement speech to the University of Michigan’s public website.
2. Retract the public apology issued in response to his remarks.
3. Issue a formal apology to Professor Peterson for the public reprimand, the erasure of his speech, and the false characterization of his conduct.
Write the above in your own words to personalize it. Once you send, comment below to motivate others. I would love to have our community send 1000+ emails to stand up for free speech and human rights.
Why Independent Media Has Never Mattered More
Gallup polling shows that only 28% of Americans trust national corporate media. Local media—historically the most trusted form of journalism—has been decimated by 75% since 2002, gutted by corporate consolidation and the billionaire buyouts I have documented in detail previously.
Into that vacuum, Let’s Address This is building—specifically to cover the human rights stories that corporate media ignores, sanitizes, or buries beneath access-protecting silence. Professor Peterson’s story is precisely the kind of story that deserves national coverage and has received almost none from major outlets. That is not an accident. It is systemic cowardice in operation—and we are all worse off for it.
If this work matters to you, I ask you to consider becoming a paid subscriber to Let’s Address This. Your support is what makes coverage like this possible. But first—there is something more urgent that I need you to do right now.
So send that email. Share this article. And remember: the future of press freedom—in our universities, in our media, and in our democracy—will be determined by whether enough of us refuse to stay silent when institutions choose complicity over courage.
Professor Peterson did not stay silent. Neither will we.
Qasim Rashid is a human rights attorney, author, and host of Let’s Address This — independent, people-funded media dedicated to human rights, press freedom, and the accountability that corporate media refuses to deliver. Subscribe, share, and let’s remain relentless in our mission for a more perfect Union.
I didn't have to get far into this to be left utterly dumbfounded, distressed, and dystopic...
Done: this is what I sent:
I owe my life to a University of Michigan graduate who became the top gyno-oncological surgeon and did her medical training at University of Michigan as well. She has trained many others who save women's lives.
That’s a legacy of a great educational institution.
You have allowed the University to besmirch that legacy by taking down Professor Peterson’s commencement speech from the university website.
The University’s apology was unwarranted, tone deaf to the realities of the world today both human and political.
You must ameliorate the damage done by having that apology retracted and standing up for all the communities the University serves. The University must issue an apology to Professor Peterson.
Finally, you must acknowledge that freedom of speech is a hallmark of a great institution. I am 82 years old. I lived through the Free Speech movement at the University of California. Censorship must not be your legacy.