College Students: Intolerant of Free Speech

From the (liberal) Brookings Institution, a national sample of college students on their attitudes toward free speech on campus.

College students’ views of the First Amendment are of profound importance for multiple reasons. First, colleges and universities are places where intellectual debate should flourish. That can only occur if campuses are places where viewpoint diversity is celebrated, and where the First Amendment is honored in practice and not only in theory. Second, what happens on campuses often foreshadows broader societal trends. Today’s college students are tomorrow’s attorneys, teachers, professors, policymakers, legislators, and judges. If, for example, a large fraction of college students believe, however incorrectly, that offensive speech is unprotected by the First Amendment, that view will inform the decisions they make as they move into positions of increasing authority later in their careers.

Clearly true.

To explore the critical issue of the First Amendment on college campuses, during the second half of August I conducted a national survey of 1,500 current undergraduate students at U.S. four-year colleges and universities. The survey population was geographically diverse, with respondents from 49 states and the District of Columbia.

The survey results establish with data what has been clear anecdotally to anyone who has been observing campus dynamics in recent years: Freedom of expression is deeply imperiled on U.S. campuses. In fact, despite protestations to the contrary (often with statements like “we fully support the First Amendment, but…), freedom of expression is clearly not, in practice, available on many campuses, including many public campuses that have First Amendment obligations.

How to the specifics:

First, a question asked:

Does the First Amendment protect “hate speech”?

Of course, the First Amendment does protect “hate speech,” even aside from the question of who has the right to decide what is “hate speech” which must be shut up. But less than half of college students believe that:


Another question asked:

A public university invites a very controversial speaker to an on-campus event. The speaker is known for making offensive and hurtful statements.

A student group opposed to the speaker disrupts the speech by loudly and repeatedly shouting so that the audience cannot hear the speaker. Do you agree or disagree that the student group’s actions are acceptable?

This tactic, quite simply, is fascist, yet a narrow majority of students agree it is acceptable.

Then, another question is asked about the “controversial speaker:”

A student group opposed to the speaker uses violence to prevent the speaker from speaking. Do you agree or disagree that the student group’s actions are acceptable?

It might seem nice that this is only a small minority, but as the author of the study notes, “Any number significantly above zero is concerning.” Indeed.

The survey asked one more question about a controversial speaker:

Consider an event, hosted at a public U.S. university by an on-campus organization, featuring a speaker known for making statements that many students consider to be offensive and hurtful. A student group opposed to the speaker issues a statement saying that, under the First Amendment, the on-campus organization hosting the event is legally required to ensure that the event includes not only the offensive speaker but also a speaker who presents an opposing view. What is your view on the student group’s statement?

While presenting alternative viewpoints is typically good, in practice the “controversial speaker” will always be the conservative one, and leftist speakers like communist Angela Davis (who spoke at Marquette) will be considered uncontroversial, and allowed to speak with no opposing viewpoint presented.

Further, this imposes on conservative groups the burden of booking at least two speakers for any event they wish to hold. To burden speech is to restrict speech.

How Does One View Education

Finally, students are given a choice between two educational philosophies:

If you had to choose one of the options below, which do you think it is more important for colleges to do?

Option 1: create a positive learning environment for all students by prohibiting certain speech or expression of viewpoints that are offensive or biased against certain groups of people

Option 2: create an open learning environment where students are exposed to all types of speech and viewpoints, even if it means allowing speech that is offensive or biased against certain groups of people?

Of course, one cannot discuss any serious issue without some viewpoints being considered “offensive” or “biased” by some group. Feminists are offended when anybody expresses opposition to abortion. A lot of blacks get “offended” by a discussion of out of wedlock births and dependency in the black community. Defending police against charges that they constantly gun down innocent blacks is offensive to the politically correct.

This notion gives politically correct groups a veto power over any ideas they dislike.

Conclusion

Of course, not every student who gives an intolerant answer will necessarily act intolerantly. Many are probably giving what they think is the “socially acceptable” answer. They wouldn’t shout down a speaker, and in fact wouldn’t care one way or the other that the speaker was on campus. But what does it mean that shutting up speech on a university campus is the socially acceptable response?

While the intolerance of many college faculties is well known, probably more attention needs to be paid to indoctrination in middle and high schools. How much is identity politics turning students into little social justice warriors who believe that “marginalized groups” have a right to be protected from any speech that offends their tender sensibilities.

Not All College Students are Intimidated

From the Wall Street Journal:

Not least among those welcoming the respite of Thanksgiving must be the nation’s college and university administrators. After student protests evicted Tim Wolfe as president of the University of Missouri, officials at other institutions of higher learning (if we may still call them that) were harassed by shouting or otherwise threatening students. At Princeton University, students occupied the office of the school’s president, Christopher Eisgruber, demanding that he throw Woodrow Wilson down the memory hole.

Even at the remove of several weeks, it is remarkable to recall that the disturbance at Yale University was over “offensive” Halloween costumes. But amid the protests, some important principles are now at risk, notably free speech. We asked at the time where the adults were on campus—either school presidents or boards of trustees? The answer, so far, is that most have caved like wet cardboard. The most hopeful adult response has come from 18- to 22-year olds—the students themselves.

At Claremont McKenna, where a dean was driven from office over a supposedly objectionable email, the student editors of the Claremont Independent published “We Dissent.”

The editors took themselves to task for not speaking out earlier. But no more. Their editorial ended: “We are not immoral because we don’t buy the flawed rhetoric of a spiteful movement. We are not evil because we don’t want this movement to tear across our campuses completely unchecked. We are no longer afraid to be voices of dissent.”

This political courage may be catching on. At Princeton last week, students under the banner of the Open Campus Coalition sent President Eisgruber their own strong statement of dissent. It describes a student body intimidated to silence by the likelihood of being vilified, in public or on social media. It ends: “Princeton undergraduates opposed to the curtailment of academic freedom refuse to remain silent out of fear of being slandered.” They signed their names and class years, and we hope their professors don’t dock their grades for thinking for themselves.

With campus administrators and faculty cowed by political correctness run amok, these students are shaping a movement of principled, civilized dissent. Let’s hope it grows.

So where are the dissenters on the Marquette campus? Turning Point USA has an honorable history. The College Republicans have hardly been heard from. Where are other conservative student groups?

In fact, we know the answer: campus leftists are aggressive and intolerant, and it takes a lot of guts to face them down. Most students don’t want the grief, so they speak up when anonymity is guaranteed, in such places as the Climate Survey and Yik Yak. But like most people most of the time they simply withdraw in order to avoid the bullies.

But the few who don’t count as heroes.

Class of 2015: Some Frank Talk

Of course, only a minority of the Class of 2015 are politically correct yahoos. But they have disproportionate power, because they are the pets of university administrations, and of the faculty.