Chicago Forum Research and Course Development Grants

Please note the current grant cycle is closed. The Chicago Forum will issue a new RFP in the fall quarter. We encourage you to sign up for our newsletter to keep up to date.

Sampling of Academic Year 2025 Grants 

University of Chicago Faculty & Academic Appointees: 

Mary Anne Case, Was the Free Exercise Holding in UCLA v. Frankel the Right Deed for the Wrong Reason?

Nicholas Feamster, Internet Censorship and Online Speech

Eugene Yu Ji, The Language Ideology of Freedom: Comparative Studies on Free Expression in Late Ancient Chinese Confucian and Buddhist Traditions

Bernard Koch, Forbidden Science? A Computational Assessment of Racial Hereditarianism (in collaboration with Kushan Dasgupta from the University of Louisville, Daniele Silvestro from the University of Fribourg, and Aaron Panofsky from the University of California, Los Angeles)

Julia Mendelsohn, Workshop on AI for Democracy (in collaboration with Chenhao Tan from the University of Chicago)

Benjamin Morgan, Doing My Own Research: The Role of Academic Inquiry in Developing Points of View

Shigehiro Oishi, Is Freedom of Expression Hindered by the Pursuit of Happiness? (in collaboration with Erin C. Westgate from the University of Florida)

Abigail Reardon, Inquiry, Conversation, Argument: Transforming Undergraduate Writing Curricula at the University of Chicago

Haun Saussy, Languages and Literatures vs. Speech Control

Ahmed El Shamsy, Freedom of Expression Before Freedom of Expression: How and Why Unpopular Opinions Survived in the Premodern Muslim World

Sunit Singh, The Ghost of Joseph Anton: Salman Rushdie and the Futures Lost

Jennifer Spruill, An Ethnographic Reframing of Hate Speech and Law in the U.S. and Germany

Susan Stokes, Universities in an Era of Democratic Erosion (in collaboration with Aziz Huq from the University of Chicago)

Tanya Zakrison, Breaking Medical Barriers: Academic Freedom in Cuban-American Scientific Exchange (in collaboration with Christopher Gomez, Ramya Kumar, Diane Haddad, Anjli Parrin, and Baddr Shakhsheer from the University of Chicago)

University of Chicago Graduate Students:

Kevin Angell, Employee v. Employer? A Study of Workplace Political Speech (in collaboration with Isaac Mehlhaff from Texas A&M University)

Reynell Badillo Sarmiento, Shadow Electoral Campaigning: How Criminal Groups Curtail Freedom of Expression To Alter Elections

Andrew Beddow, American and German Speech and Expression: Comparative Perspectives on Free Inquiry

Lautaro Cella, Tolerance for Denialist Rhetoric in Argentina and Chile

Abhimanyu Chandra, Hindu Nationalism and Freedom to Teach at a University: Can Religious Rituals Only Be Taught By Someone of That Religion?

Rachel Chery, Cold War Frequencies: Radio, Music, and Cultural Diplomacy in the Caribbean

Gabriel Foy-Sutherland, The Submerged Campaign: Citizens United, Speech Now, and the Transformation of American Campaign Strategy

Zikai Li, Using Large Language Models to Tailor Communication Styles and Counter Climate Misinformation

Luc Moulaison, The Transnational Origins of the Left's Uneasy Relationship with Free Speech (in collaboration with Eli Frankel and Phi Bachsleitner from the University of Chicago)

Ruanzhenghao Shi, Crackle and Crackdown: Movement Diffusion, Decentralized Action, and State Suppression in the 2018 Chinese #Metoo Movement

Jiebiao Wang, Global Exiled Journalism: Advancing Free Inquiry and Expression Across Borders

Cemal Yilmaz, Political Rhetoric and Democratic Backsliding: A Novel Framework for Understanding Threats to Democracy and Free Speech