When I first started writing this story, I was ready to compliment a major university for standing up for free speech. But now, I have to criticize this particular institution for bowing down to the mob. By and large, major universities are not the fans of free speech that they used to be.

Over the past decade, the situation for freedom of expression has become rather bleak, with students and faculty employing measures designed to shut down ideas and opinions that are not in line with progressive orthodoxy.

But at least one university seemed to still believe in the importance of speech, having taken action against a professor who punished a student for making arguments she found unacceptable:

The University of Cincinnati has reprimanded a faculty member at the center of a TikTok controversy related to gender, free speech and trans rights.

The reprimand directs adjunct instructor Melanie Nipper to complete training about UC’s free speech policy and submit her syllabi for the coming school year to her department head.

The instructor reportedly gave a student a failing grade for using the term “biological women” in a project:

In May, Nipper gave student Olivia Krolczyk 0/20 points for part of a final project in a class called Gender in Popular Culture for using the term “biological women” to describe non-trans female athletes.

Krolczyk expressed her displeasure in a TikTok video that went viral; Nipper later confirmed the events in an interview with The Enquirer.

Ashley Currier, head of the Department of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at UC, issued the reprimand, with Nipper responding June 19 with a request to appeal the sanction.

In recent years, controversies surrounding free speech on college campuses have highlighted the challenges of navigating diverse viewpoints in academia. The University of Cincinnati’s reprimand of faculty member Melanie Nipper for grading a student based on a controversial viewpoint was a welcome development from a First Amendment perspective.

But now, it appears the university had a slight change of heart and has rescinded Nipper’s reprimand:

Krolczyk submitted a complaint with the university after Nipper gave her a zero, prompting Ashley Currier, head of the Department of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at UC, to formally reprimand Nipper on June 14. After Nipper filed an appeal request and attended an on-campus meeting with administrators, the university decided the reprimand was “issued in error” due to Nipper’s argument that failing Krolczyk aligned with UC’s free speech policy, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported.

UC’s free speech policy states professors’ judgment must be “reasonably related to a legitimate pedagogical purpose, such as classroom rules enacted by teachers.”

The reprimand will be removed from Nipper’s personnel file, but Nipper will be required to complete training about the university’s free speech policy and submit her syllabi for the coming school year to her department head, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer.

Well, at least the academic authoritarian will still have to go through free speech training. However, it is disheartening that such training is necessary at all. It reflects a departure from the traditional notion that universities should be bastions of open and robust intellectual discourse.

Historically, universities have been recognized as spaces where ideas can be freely expressed and debated, even if they are controversial or challenge prevailing beliefs. The exchange of diverse perspectives is essential for intellectual growth and the development of critical thinking skills.

If the university had stuck to its guns, it could have discouraged other professors who have an authoritarian bent from using the threat of lower grades to cow students into keeping their true views to themselves while coercing them into publicly embracing hard leftist ideas.

There is still more work to be done. There have been plenty of stories of professors engaging in the same censorious behavior as Nipper. Students have complained about having to conceal their actual beliefs out of fear of failing a class. These folks are essentially forced to go along with the progressive program to ensure that they earn their degrees. Such practices should not be allowed at higher learning institutions.

But the only way to change this paradigm is to apply pressure to colleges and universities that allow their instructors to behave in this manner. It is absolutely imperative for all institutions of higher learning to recommit themselves to the principles of free speech and create an environment where intellectual diversity thrives.