Columbia Free Speech Alliance (CFSA) is an IRS 501(c)3 non-profit public charity, so donations are tax deductible.  We aim to restore something essential: a Columbia where students, professors, and invited guests can speak, debate, and present ideas without fear.

CFSA was founded in 2022 by a group of Columbia University alumni concerned about viewpoint diversity and free speech on the Columbia campus.  We work with national organizations leading the defense of campus free speech, including Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), the American Council of Trustees and Alumni and the Academic Freedom Alliance.  CFSA is an affiliate of the Alumni Free Speech Alliance – a growing network of alumni from 30 colleges and universities, among them Yale, Princeton, Cornell, Harvard, Dartmouth, University of Pennsylvania, MIT, Stanford, and the University of Chicago.

Columbia Free Speech Alliance is non-partisan.  We will stand up for the free speech and academic freedom of progressives, moderates, and conservatives alike.  We do not take positions on individual issues not related to our mission.  In furthering this mission CFSA explicitly supports the “Chicago Principles,” the vision of free expression and academic freedom created at the University of Chicago and adopted, although often not followed, by Columbia University and ultimately adopted in one form or another by over eighty universities.

Importantly we support the peaceful “talking across differences,” recognizing that these differences could be ethnic background, religion, nationality, or political opinion.  We fear that Columbia University has fallen short of these stated purposes, its noble goals, and intentions.  We hope to become a resource for alumni, students, faculty, and administrators who fear they have been silenced because they have offered an opinion that might be uncomfortable.  We will lobby the university to remove policies and procedures that make it difficult for student organizations to invite speakers or suppress free expression on campus.