The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression has documented 273 incidents this year "in which students and student groups were targeted for their constitutionally protected expression," with two weeks left in 2025, the free speech group said Tuesday. 

"This breaks the previous record of 252 set back in 2020, the first year of the Students Under Fire database, during the unrest prompted by Covid-19 lockdowns and the murder of George Floyd," FIRE said.

Several incidents in recent months concern Turning Point USA chapters that were denied campus recognition in the wake of the assassination of the group's founder, Charlie Kirk, including at self-identified Christian universities in California.

FIRE also pointed to a "surge in attempts by government officials to influence how universities respond to student speech, especially in the wake of the Charlie Kirk assassination."

It cited Indiana’s attorney general asking constituents to pressure Indiana University to fire an anti-Kirk student from their campus job and a congressman who introduced a bill to strip Oberlin College of federal funding unless it expelled a student who called for "political assassinations."

Executive orders at state and federal levels were also "used as justification to impose system-wide bans on student-organized drag shows, cancel student film festivals, and outright disband numerous student groups," FIRE said.

Students are getting the message that "the safest move in college is to keep your head down and your mouth shut,"  FIRE Senior Researcher Logan Dougherty said.