Report finds college students support free speech, but fear speaking up

A new report finds that most U.S. college students support free speech, but nearly half fear speaking up about controversial issues like affirmative action and transgender rights.

Among 2,618 students surveyed by More in Common and the Constructive Dialogue Institute, 94% agreed that “we should listen to others with an open mind, including those with whom we disagree.”

And most students from both sides of the ideological fence disagreed that “some ideas are too harmful to be discussed in a college setting.”

However, 45% said they fear expressing opinions in class and offending their peers. That included 63% of “very conservative” students, compared to just 29% of the “very liberal.”

“To some extent, the fear these students have is justified,” Stephen Hawkins, director of research at More in Common and a co-author of the report, told The Washington Times. “Significant numbers of students report that they are often offended, and more than 1 in 5 have participated in calling out or ‘canceling’ someone.”

More in Common was established to produce research identifying common ground on hot-button issues, while the Constructive Dialogue Institute is a psychology-based nonprofit that works for dialogue on campuses. 

The two groups administered the survey on the Qualtrics platform from March 27 to May 18. Their report notes that most conservative and liberal students affirmed the “traditional academic values” of empathy, listening and a common humanity.

It also found that liberal, nonbinary and Black students surveyed were “disproportionately” more likely to take offense when conservatives on their campuses expressed opinions they didn’t like.

For example, a quarter of all college students, including 40% of very liberal students and 20% of very conservative students, reported being “somewhat” or “very often” offended by their peers’ opinions.

Conservative students were more likely than liberals to say administrators were too restrictive of free speech.

And while 42% of “very liberal” students admitted to “calling out, punishing or ‘canceling’” a person or group for “inappropriate statements or actions,” only 8% of “very conservative” students said they had done the same.

The findings confirm that conservatives make up a minority of college students and have little campus influence, the researchers said.

According to some free speech groups not involved in the report, the findings confirm recent trends.

Officials at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a Philadelphia group that advocates for free speech on college campuses, said many conservatives routinely self-censor.

They pointed to a Sept. 6 FIRE report that found 58% of 55,102 college students responding to a similar survey reported stifling their opinions during conversations with classmates.

“All of this fits within a growing research literature documenting how conservatives in the academy report greater experiences of hostility, discrimination, stigma, and often a lower sense of belonging,” FIRE researcher Nathan Honeycutt told The Times.

He added that FIRE has called on universities to articulate clear free speech policies and enforce them uniformly.

“Back it up by not succumbing to mob pressure to censor or sanction controversial or unpopular speech,” Mr. Honeycutt said. “Back it up with a commitment to institutional neutrality — not taking sides on political issues, hot topics or culture-war controversies.”

In a statement emailed to The Times, the American Civil Liberties Union noted the obligation of colleges to “balance” students’ rights.

“Public universities are obligated to facilitate both controversial speech and protests against that speech,” the ACLU said. “While it can be challenging to balance public safety and the need for vigorous public debate, the Constitution requires the government to protect the free speech rights of everyone, not just those with whom we agree.”

Controversies about student speakers have intensified in recent years.

In the free speech report published last Thursday, More in Common and the Constructive Dialogue Institute pointed to the example of Stanford Law students who shouted down U.S. Circuit Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan at a March 9 lecture.

Liberal students objected to the judge’s past opposition to expanding LGBT rights after the campus chapter of the Federalist Society, a conservative legal group, invited him to speak.

Gregory T. Angelo, president of the right-leaning New Tolerance Campaign, said college administrators have increasingly taken sides against conservatives in campus free speech debates.

“Students need to be brave in expressing deeply held beliefs that may not match those of their liberal counterparts,” Mr. Angelo, a former head of the Log Cabin Republicans LGBT group, said in an email. “Such bravery needs to be fostered by school administrators who match their school’s stated commitment to free speech with actions that underline it.”

According to the Constructive Dialogue Institute researchers, some students feel anxious about keeping up with the latest campus language for sex and gender identity. They shared the fear that using outdated terms for transgender and non-binary people, for example, would offend their peers.

Researchers also noted a growing trend of liberal students treating widely held conservative views on topics like abortion as offensive, misogynistic, patriarchal, sexist, or otherwise harmful to women.

Such ideas are no longer acceptable to voice in public or private, putting them outside the bounds of free expression, according to those who oppose them as “hate speech.”

“The sticking point is that the definition of hate speech, or harmful speech, is not widely shared,” researcher Mylien T. Duong, another co-author of the report, told The Times. “Liberal students believe that there should be stricter guidelines for speech.”

“Conservative students tend to think the opposite,” Ms. Duong added. “For example, they think their school’s administration is too harsh on offensive speech.”

The report recommends that students acknowledge their differences more openly — and urges school administrators to help them overcome black-and-white thinking that demonizes other viewpoints.

The Rev. Stephen Fields, a Jesuit priest and professor at Georgetown University, said that has to start with professors bracketing their political opinions more often.

“The way this is done is to teach [students] how to construct and assess an argument according to the laws of evidence and reason,” Father Fields told The Times. “When faculty are themselves ideologues, it’s no surprise their students will learn that lesson only too well.”

Correction: An earlier version of this article misidentified the affiliation of Stephen Hawkins and misstated the roles of the two groups in producing the report.