I think it is a mistake to be too abstract about "free speech" issues. Colleges are inevitably going to permit some speech and not others, among their professor

I think it is a mistake to be too abstract about "free speech" issues. Colleges are inevitably going to permit some speech and not others, among their professors and students. The issue now is that the political consensus among university leadership has drifted far from the consensus of some key stakeholders. In particular donors and politicians. Some degree programs are really entirely politically aligned with the Democratic party. It's basically impossible for these to "allow free speech". You can't expect a group of people who strongly believe in Democratic party politics, who tie that into their everyday work, to be open and fair when hiring people who equally strongly believe in Republican party politics. You are never going to have the Harvard Women's Studies department be half Republicans. What I think would be interesting and might actually happen is if there were more "alternative universities" that had different viewpoints. Maybe the University of Austin could be something like this.