Purdue receives Gold Standard designation for fostering a campus culture of free expression

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Purdue University stands out nationally as a champion of free expression and diversity of thought, scoring among the highest of U.S. universities evaluated by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni’s (ACTA) Campus Freedom Initiative.

Using ACTA’s 20-point Gold Standard for Freedom of Expression, Purdue scored 18 out of 20, joining the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of Wyoming and Vanderbilt University in achieving the organization’s first Gold Standard university designations.

The average score was 11 among the 66 U.S. universities evaluated so far in ACTA’s Report Cards on Free Expression, an effort aimed at returning higher education to its bedrock mission of excellence and open inquiry. Only those universities scoring 18 or higher received the Gold Standard designation.

“We are delighted to recognize Purdue as a member of the first cohort of ACTA Gold Standard schools identified by our Campus Freedom Initiative,” said Steven McGuire, the Paul & Karen Levy Fellow in Campus Freedom at ACTA. “Our team has long admired Purdue’s commitment to free expression, and our analysis of its policies and actions shows that it is a national leader on this issue. We hope the rest of American higher education will be inspired by the example of Purdue, which proves that universities can protect and promote free expression when they value and prioritize it.”

ACTA’s free expression report card assesses institutional policies and practices across five areas: committing to a culture of free expression, fostering civil discourse, cultivating intellectual diversity, breaking down barriers to free expression and advancing leadership accountability. Its 20-point action plan measured university policies designed to protect open inquiry, with points awarded based on criteria such as:

• Official adoptions: formally adopting the Chicago Principles on freedom of expression
• Institutional neutrality: maintaining institutional neutrality on controversial political, social and cultural issues
• Orientation and training: requiring free expression and viewpoint diversity training for students and administrative staff
• Hiring practices: opposing intellectual litmus tests (such as mandatory diversity statements) during faculty hiring and promotion
• Leadership standards: factoring commitment to free expression into the evaluations and searches for top administrators like presidents, provosts and deans

Since its founding in 1995, ACTA has made restoring American history and civic education a central part of its mission. Its evaluation highlights universities’ strengths in protecting free expression and identifies areas schools must work on to improve the student experience.

In September, Purdue was ranked No. 7 overall nationally, No. 3 among all public universities and tops in the Big Ten in the 2027 College Free Speech Rankings, a survey released by College Pulse and the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, known as FIRE. Purdue trailed only the Georgia Institute of Technology (No. 3) and Michigan Technological University (No. 4) among U.S. public institutions in the FIRE survey.

About Purdue University

Purdue University is a research institution ranked among the top 10 public universities in the United States. More than 111,000 students study at Purdue across multiple campuses, including more than 57,000 at our main campus locations in West Lafayette and Indianapolis. As a land-grant university committed to affordability and accessibility, Purdue’s main campus has frozen tuition 14 years in a row, enabling more students than ever to graduate debt-free.