September 29, 2023 - 5:00pm
Censorship and cancellation efforts have accelerated on college campuses in recent years. But many still argue over where the support for these policies originates, whether it be the faculty, students, or administrators. A new survey shows that the force of student opinions on campus censorship should not be overlooked, though their views are more complicated than they may appear at first glance.
This week, the Buckley Institute at Yale University released the results from a survey of 802 four-year American college students on their views on free speech, censorship, and other political issues. The survey shows a majority (63%) support diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) statements as a condition of employment at their university. This is just a 4% point decline from their 2022 results. Unsurprisingly, liberal and moderate students were more likely to support mandatory DEI statements compared to conservative students.
Perhaps even more concerning, a slight majority (51%) of students in the survey supported “speech codes to regulate speech for students and faculty”. This is a 10% point increase from last year, and the first time in the history of the survey (since 2015) that an outright majority favoured speech codes. In addition, this is also the first year in which students support ‘shout downs’ than oppose them.
Given these results, it may seem surprising that several major universities are conducting free speech initiatives this year. One interpretation could be that they would like to convince students to adapt to the academic environment by dropping their censorious views. But another reason could be that students’ views on free speech are more complex.
The same survey found that 69% of students considered it more important for their university to “encourage free speech and intellectual diversity” than prevent “offensive or insensitive dialogue”. It’s important to consider the implications of this result in context of the previous ones. For instance, at least 20% of students both support speech codes and believe that free speech is more important than preventing offensive dialogue. How can both be possible?
The most likely explanation is that students simply don’t grasp the tradeoffs inherent to either free speech or DEI policies. It’s a common problem in public opinion surveys that is perhaps best illustrated by surveys on federal spending, where most citizens agree that spending should be reduced but do not support reductions in any of the main programmes.
But the tradeoff between free speech and DEI policies is very real, and students should be made aware of it. DEI initiatives compel students and faculty to espouse progressive views if they want to remain in their university’s good graces. This goes directly against the principles of academic freedom and intellectual diversity that students claim to support.
The results from the Buckley Institute’s survey show that student opinions on free speech need to be reckoned with if we want to restore academic freedom and intellectual diversity on college campuses. While free speech initiatives are a good start, firm institutional commitments must explicitly prioritise free speech over other values, such as DEI. And educators should work to make students more aware of the tradeoffs between free speech and regulations on offensive speech.
Neetu Arnold is a Research Fellow at the National Association of Scholars and a Young Voices contributor.
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SubscribeGen-Z are bonkers – they have all subscribed up to a religion with no name, no god, no prophet, no prophecy and no pearly gates. Although there is a bill gates.
And they signed up without reading or understanding the terms and conditions!
Well good for them – yea of little faith.
How can that possibly be good? They way in which they’re persecuting people and ruining their lives sure as hell isn’t good.
Let’s be realistic. No young person wants to have unfashionable views, especially young men, because that makes it harder to get laid, which is what young men think about all the time. That’s why they all wear the same clothes and like the same music.
If you want to wean them off woke just make it unfashionable.
It’s been firmly established that you can’t simultaneously have DEI (Intersectionality or Applied Postmodernism) and free speech. The two can not coexist. DEI exists to create a constantly expanding bureacracy of “experts” that implement DEI as a “Core Values” strategy. The object is to create social credit scores for the purpose of redistributing outcomes to reshape social hierarchies based on Identity. Those deemed “privileged” are moved to the margins so the “marginalized” can be moved to the center.
You can not allow open debate in that environment because debate would open up “Core values” to direct attack. If the Core Values are attacked than the entire implementation fails and the bureacracy collapses.
You’ve summed the problem up very well.
Nicely put.
I am not going to read your comments until you have submitted DEI statements proving that you have confessed and understood your sins against marginilsed groups, and taken the necessary compensatory steps.
For instance, at least 20% of students both support speech codes and believe that free speech is more important than preventing offensive dialogue. How can both be possible?
The most likely explanation is that students simply don’t grasp the tradeoffs inherent to either free speech or DEI policies.
Actually, I’d say the most likely explanation is that the students have absorbed at a gut level the concept of an entirely artificial classification of “hate speech” which is somehow separate and distinct from actual speech, and therefore can be restricted and perhaps even eliminated without restricting or curbing free speech.
Probably. But “speech code” is a vague term. If Universities e.g. encouraged constructive debate and discouraged as hominem attacks would that be a speech code? a bad idea? The trouble with such surveys is that the questions are usually posed in such a way as to get the answers the questioner wants. Overall, I took a lot of comfort from the support that free speech clearly still enjoys as a concept amongst 69% of students even if, as you say, this support is qualified by “hate speech” concerns.
Head in the sand, ass in the air.
Maybe. But I think the pendulum is swinging back and that the woke are in the process of losing the support of traditional liberals and others aged over 30. The $64,000 question is whether this reaction will gain traction in Gen Z. If so, great. If not, the reaction will last only a couple of years then be followed by a renewed march to an Orwellian “Woke World”. In this context, I find a survey suggesting 69% of students still support free speech (albeit imperfectly) comforting. It suggests the odds are better than some fear. Incapacitating pessimism is as bad as burying one’s head in the sand.
You’re holding on to that 69% stat as some kind of positive sign. Right Wing Hippie’s comment puts it in perspective. If this modern day Inquisition is to be stopped, those in opposition need to ditch the fairy tales and acknowledge how dire the situation really is. Look at what’s going on with the legislatures in California, Michigan and New York.
Not incapacitated here, just looking at things the way they are. False hope is a form of surrender. Recognizing the harsh reality of a situation is the first step towards changing that situation.
Sounds about right. The concept of ‘hate speech’ and its acceptance as a prosecutable offense have served as tools for increasingly censorious elites to take away our constitutional rights and liberties. Look up Michigan HB4447 and you’ll see how far this totalitarianism has progressed. Soon we’ll have re-education camps.
Sad and maybe true
I suspect this is correct. I know quite a few people who would agree with that kind of formulation, supporting free speech, but not questioning what they conceive of as “hate speech” falling under that.
Which makes some sense if you define hate speech as advocating or inciting violent action of some kind. Pretty much everyone agrees that is not what free speech allows for, and legal definitions of hate speech tend to have a very high bar. But many people do not understand that and have a much broader definition of hate speech.
Generation of the d-mned, obliquely expressing the soon-to-be global hegemony of Chinese Maoism.
In truth, they are spoilt, over-indulged by their families – often by wealthy grandparents – and have grown up only with the insularity of the Playstation and digital social media. So they never grow up at all, only further into themselves and each other, regarding the world outside of that as Absolute Evil.
The triumph of virtue-seeking over intelligence?
So what you’re saying is these students really aren’t so bright – not so good at connecting dots.
Is that surprising? As I read in another article here some weeks ago, the customers, i.e. the students, primarily come with a certain view of the world, so they ask for universities to accommodate it.
The fact that they are now customers buying a very expensive product has a lot to do with their attitudes towards their own ‘safety’ on campus.
There is no real contradiction in the various survey question results because it is impossible to know whether the answers given are to the question asked or what the respondent thinks the question is asking.
Take the question quoted about whether it is ever justified to shout down or disrupt a speaker on campus. Now as a free speech advocate I would be inclined to answer no because I disapprove of rational talks by say Jordon Peterson being shouted down by the mob. But if I think a bit more about it my answer would be yes. I could think of circumstances were some violent agitator is advocating an imminent attack on someone like Professor Stock for her views when shouting them down and disrupting their speech was entirely justifiable.
Should people be able to say exactly what they want unconstrained by any laws. Certainly not. We should not have the right to shout fire in a crowded theatre or advocate violent attacks. Does that mean I want to endorse the suppression of free speech where academic discussion is concerned? Of course not. Crude yes or no questions (even with strongly or weakly modifiers) seldom elicit anything apart from a bit of social mood music.
I’m not sure a lot of the repliers had thought things through (as you did, e.g. in your Peterson/Stock example).
The standard legal limits on free speech in the US cover slander, libel and imminent, direct threats against an individual. Sounds reasonable to me.
In my conversations with strident left-wing students I’ve noticed that they don’t make a distinction between ‘hate’ speech and ‘free’ speech. In their minds, those advocating for free speech are ranting right-wing fanatics. However, what boggles me the most, is that they seem unable to comprehend that the term ‘hate speech’ can quite easily be used against them should the political climate change – that expressing their views and opinions could one day be treated as a form of ‘hatred’ needing to be suppressed.
For ——– sake they are young immature teenagers/ early twenties with their emotions all over the place. Cannot anyone remember what they were like at that age? We were told off by a very senior civil servant that we did not understand the complexities of the subject under discussion only for him to be scoffed at for not finding an instant solution. Years later facing similar situations did we, to our horror, realise what he was talking about. The law of unanticipated consequences became real.
George Orwell in 1984 made the brilliant invention of the Party’s Newspeak in which words were eliminated because the Party believed that without a large vocabulary “Wrong Thoughts” weren’t possible. That’s where we’re heading.
Speaking of speech codes. Are many of the other commentators on the site finding an increasing number of their comments sent immediately for moderation? I’ve seen other commentators complaining as well and it’s happened to me intermittently in the past but recently it’s been every comment I make. (I expect the same will happen with this one)
Is this just poor customer service from Unherd or do they operate a form of flagging or shadow banning, which subject some users to have all their comments moderated in advance?
I suspect they have a list of “usual suspects”. After another user irritated me, I expressed myself more forcefully than usual with the result that almost all my posts were delayed by moderation. The good news is that, after reverting to my usual languid amiability for several weeks, I was seemingly rehabilitated and no longer suffer from this problem. It appears that UH is an initially harsh but ultimately forgiving god.
I’ve had comments paused for review, but none have ever dissapeared for good. Adding links or certain buzzwords may cause your posts to be instantly routed to the inspection queue. Also, I wonder if some readers are flagging comments they don’t like, which I’d guess leads to temporary removal until they are checked. I am fairly sure Unherd, and most other sites outsource their moderation to specialist company – and that Unherd would not want to have an official policy of suppressing comments the editorial staff disagree with – even if only becuase that would be very damaging to their reputation as a reasonable opinion site.
I suspect DEI excesses are working as a sort of dumb-tax/barrier to success. On the whole, brighter, better resourced students and institutions understand the games that are being played, jump through the hoops, and then crack on with their work and career nonetheless; the less able (institutions, groups and individuals) get bogged down cognitively, emotionally annd adminstratively. These are the ones who can least afford the ‘luxury’ wasting time on political kabuki. It’s a pyramid scheme with the likes of Kendi, and DiAngleo sitting atop a humble throne of ‘hay’ (spun gold).
It’s about students. Chill out. Remember oneself at 18. We all grow up. And the 69% reference is good. I doubt would have been much different back in my day.
The problem is that these students are bringing these censorious attitudes with them into the workforce. And no, when I was a student it was only really obnoxious individuals who tried to impose speech codes upon others. The difference today is that they’ve grown in social influence.
I think some does flow through but it’s not all bad and in fact often well needed. The sexism, racism and homophobia that was acceptable when I was younger was dreadful and fair play to subsequent generations for saying enough is enough.
Some of the more outlandish EDI twaddle doesn’t last long when it butts into real World and one can see that a rebalancing does happen.
There’s a difference too when it’s a Business judgment about how products are marketed. That’s Capitalism at work. If it helps something sell that’s not necessarily the imposition of a code but simple economics. And if the market abreacts – like with Bud-Lite – then the market course corrects.
University campuses in some places do need stronger Professorial leadership. They should reassert themselves and one can see certain Institutions doing that.
You betcha they have.
The problem is two-fold. First, students are given a lot more credence than they were 60 years ago. If people ignored them, it wouldn’t matter what they thought. Second, a lot of them don’t change as they get older.
How do you know they don’t change NC? You got some crystal ball?
Based on the past some retain values they held as students some don’t. I suspect that won’t change.
Entirely anecdotal, but my own experience is the more extreme the views as a student the more the flip-flop later. Half the SWP advocates I remember ended up in the City! The less extreme more consistent as they aged. Maybe something about the narcissism of being part of supposed vanguard.
If students are not being taught to think critically but instead are indoctrinated with what is essentially religious dogma, don’t see how they’re going to give up their sense of mission as they get older. Wake up already, this has gone beyond the universities and become the dominant narrative in the legacy and social media. Far worse, its insane, authoritarian beliefs are increasingly being mandated by the federal government and state legislatures.
I’m inclined to agree. What may appear to some to be a non-issue of callow youth who will outgrow repressive thinking — and I hope that’s correct — might also be another expression of top-down as well as bottom-up authoritarianism, which seems to be infiltrating every level of our society. Teaching young people to think critically and to constructively engage dissenting views is crucial to molding an informed citizenry; that used to be a key element of a college education. I hope administrators and faculty don’t lose sight of that.
All of this DEI crap works against the 15% of students who are genuinely intelligent.
Why does that graph add up to 181% and appear to have no relation to the numbers in the article?
the solid colours are the totals, the graded lighter colours are how those totals break down
Students are morons (for not having worked out the tradeoffs inherent to either free speech or DIE policies). In other news, the sun came up.
It’s the end times. Jesus said: ” It will be as in the days of Noah when he returns.” The Mark of the beast is available at your veterinarian. The government will be able to cancel your bank account at will. With an all-digital currency enemies of the state will not even be able to beg for food since there is no way to give them money and anyone who gives them food will soon be homeless himself. Other symptoms are the receptibility of sodomy. Total environmental collapse, nuclear war and the decline of the belief in God and the church. Note that the 2000 anniversary of the assertion into heaven of the 2nd person of the Trinity is 2033. God is about to pour out his wrath on those who are not worshiping him. Remember that he controls nature and can throw asteroids as sinful men.
Too many dumbos at unis nowadays
Nothing is as profoundly anti-American as a willingness to suppress or compell speech. The current tendency to do so — NYC’s preferred pronoun law being a nadir — is deeply troubling. Whatever our disagreement on specific issues, I still hope for an America in which all citizens embrace Justice Robert Jackson’s majority opinion in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (SCOTUS, 1943):
“If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.”
“Free speech” is like “Free Trade” are expressions that make the issues seem simple when they’re not. There has never been a country in the world that has endorsed absolute free speech, and absolute free trade is literally nonsense. So it always will be about where you draw the line which means it’s not a binary issue at all. But that’s not what people want they just love black vs white, good Vs evil. It’s worth remembering that it was the leftwing radicals in the UK (the Jacobins) who fought courageously for free speech during the first half of the 19thC. It was the conservatives who wanted to shut free discussion down. What we call ‘free speech’ in the UK is very recent indeed. The blasphemy law was still on the statue books not that long ago. Free speech is not a conservative principle at all.
Free speech in this context clearly refers to the ability for people to hold a political or social view without State interference.
Of course free speech is not a “Conservative issue.” The only reason Conservatives are frequently bringing it up is because the Moderm Left now imposes the equivalent of Blasphemy rules onto anyone that contests their Orthodoxy.
The last Blasphemy arrest in the UK was 1921. In 1949 Lord Denning proclaimed it dead. It was a common law with no teeth that wasn’t being enforced.
Is your position that because people that defined themselves as “Conservatives” used to act like tyrants a very long time ago that modern Progressives have a right to retribution against modern Conservatives?
No, its that conservatives seem to make out that free speech is some long established traditional principle that is being destroyed by these awful progressive upstarts. That’s just a lie. ‘Should be allowed to say what I want’ sounds great until you actually start looking at specific examples. Saying on live TV that no man would ever want to go to bed with journalist X because …, is surely just someone saying what they want isn’t it?
Actually, it is. If the government can keep people from saying things that you don’t like, what’s to keep them coming for you? Free speech for all or censorship for all.
Because I want to live in a proper society with a set of shared values, that through a process of democracy is reflected in the government. I don’t want the anarchy of absolute free speech. I see government as my friend and support, I see commercial interests as unaccountable and predatory. I don’t have a vision of society as a bunch of unrelated individuals who happen to be living on the same patch of land. But then again I’m from the UK not US
NCHIs, police visiting private citizens to ‘check on their thinking’, a 16 year old autistic girl being arrested for telling a police officer that she looks like a lesbian, a woman being arrested for silent prayer, Banfield Grammar School kowtowing to Islamists, censorship of anyone standing up for women’s rights as they’re being systematically destroyed by the trans lobby, etc, etc, etc. Tell me, do these things reflect your shared values?
“Because I want to live in a proper society with a set of luxury values, that through a process of gerrymandered leftish democracy is reflected in the government…”
What if people you don’t agree with set those “shared values.” What if a right wing government wins Democratic control and decides to reverse the script? Maybe they would interpret “hate speech” more broadly to hold people equally accountable regardless of their race, sex or religion?
So for instance if a member of a group the left defines as “marginalized” makes a blatantly discriminatory personal insult about an unvaccinated person or a white male or a Christian or gasp…a white, male Christian. What if all of a sudden that kind of speech started qualifying as “hate speech.”
Would you see your government as your friend if it was going around trying to silence your progressive speech?
Do you think “positive discrimination” against a traditionally powerful group is sustainable as a means to attain “Equality” or would it just lead to tribalism where everybody identifies as members of a racial or ethnic group and nothing can ever get done and nobody can ever get along? They tried this in the Balkans BTW. Its called Balkanization.
Might we be better off treating people as unique individuals instead of group members bound together by some
immutable trait they can’t change?
Remind me the last time an ethnic separatist group was on “the right side of history.”
Why are you talking about ‘the left’? Nothing I have said is leftwing, its actually a traditional conservative vision of society. It is not one of the recent theoretical ideologies like socialism or libertarianism – which are just that ‘theories’ of society
With regards to:
“So for instance if a member of a group the left defines as “marginalized” makes a blatantly discriminatory personal insult about an unvaccinated person or a white male or a Christian or gasp…a white, male Christian. What if all of a sudden that kind of speech started qualifying as “hate speech.”
This would be blatantly wrong, and obviously inconsistent – You would have every right to protest this. (BTW the right play the same games certain books in Texas are band from school libraries) But nothing I have said gives you reason to think I’m ‘woke left’. I’m merely pointing out that free speech is not and could never be an absolute. A society that tried to operate on that basis would be an anarchy – which is where the US is heading perhaps. Some level of conformity both in speech and action has to be the glue that holds a society together.
Bizarrely it is both the libertarian right with their absolute individualism, and absolute free speech, and the extreme woke left (who argue, for example, that I can identify as any gender I like – because of my ‘individual rights’) who both ultimately destroy a cohesive society. They are both far more similar than they realise.
Martin- you’re firmly on the left. You may not be a Woke absurdist but your underlying establishment philosophy is the value set that allows Woke tyranny to flourish.
The government is your “friend” and commercial interests are predatory? No, they’re both predatory. The difference is only one of them acknowledges they’re predatory or self-interested. The idea that the government is “your friend” is not a “Conservative” idea unless you’re living in some pre-Cromwell era. Conservatives are inherently suspicious of big government.
All progressivism has done is merge the State with big business (ESG/stakeholder capitalism) which is the worst possible situation. If you trace the history of progressivism whether in America, UK, Germany, Russia or Italy…that is what it’s always done. It’s been called many other names.
Tell me about the books that Texas banned adults from reading while you’re at it.
But that’s not what is being censored. What’s actually being censored are facts or data that make others uncomfortable or contradict a preferred narrative.
Another aspect of speech that is being overlooked is that of compelled speech in schools and academia, especially on issues such as feminism, gender and climate change. Students are often expected to write papers based on ‘irrefutable’ assumptions that the world is under the controlling grip of a white patriarchy hell-bent on oppressing marginalized identities while destroying the planet.
I’m slightly amazed that this collected (at the moment) 7 down-votes. I’d love to know what people found problematic.
Excellent point about how many of these things seems simple, but they aren’t.
It’s because there is an assumption in right wing circles that government is always bad. It is always good to have less government.
Again the key word is “less.” How much more State do you want? They’re in your commercials selling you vaccines.
I wouldn’t say always bad but mostly so, or to quote Thomas Paine, ‘a necessary evil’.