The Columbia Free Speech Alliance (CFSA) is a non-partisan organization founded by a group of Columbia University alumni in July 2023 to protect and promote Free Expression, Viewpoint Diversity, Institutional Neutrality, and Academic Freedom at Columbia University. An independent alumni-based organization, which includes faculty and students among our members, we hope to work with the President and Trustees of Columbia University as well as with faculty, administrators, and students.

Columbia Free Speech Alliance (CFSA) is an IRS recognized 501c(3) non-profit organization and as a public charity contributions are tax deductible. We work closely with faculty and student groups supporting free speech, academic freedom, and viewpoint diversity. Columbia Free Speech Alliance (CFSA) gives the many Columbians who support free speech and academic freedom a mechanism to make their voices heard and to work together with others who feel the same way. We work closely with the largest nonprofit organizations supporting campus free speech and related values – notably, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, and the Academic Freedom Alliance. Columbia Free Speech Alliance is an affiliate member of the Alumni Free Speech Alliance. Organized in October 2021, the Alumni Free Speech Alliance, an umbrella group of alumni free speech groups that has grown rapidly to include alumni groups from 28 colleges and universities, including Yale, Princeton, Cornell, Harvard, Dartmouth, University of Pennsylvania, MIT, Stanford, University of Chicago, University of Virginia, and University of North Carolina along with other colleges and universities.

Columbia Free Speech Alliance is non-partisan. We will stand up for the free speech and academic freedom of progressives, moderates, and conservative 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 differenced 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.

We also encourage the university to invite speakers who have been cancelled in the past and to discipline those who would disrupt speaker or the proceedings of student organizations. Finally, we hope that the university, including academic departments and programs, will become politically neutral, avoiding making political statements about the issues of the day.

While we are an alumni-based organization, we welcome all Columbians, including alumni, students, faculty, administrators, parents, and grandparents of students, staff, and others into CFSA. We encourage all who support freedom of speech, diversity of thought, and the open exchange of ideas at Columbia to join us. We will respect the confidentiality of subscribers and supporters and will not share or otherwise distribute those names to outside organizations. CFSA is an alumni-led organization, wholly independent from Columbia University.