A new survey from FIRE shows one-third of college students are open to the use of violence to stop speech. That’s a crisis for higher ed — and for democracy.
As I said on Twitter, if the first person to hurl an insult instead of a stone birthed civilization, then anyone who resorts to violence instead of using their words is attempting to kill it.
Delighting in someone's death is not just morally repugnant, it's psychologically corrosive. It's a dehumanization of the other and of the self.
I would be cautous about assuming the politics of anyone unbalanced enough to do such a thing. They are as likely to be someone twisted up about Epstein Files as they are a devoted leftists. The most likely situation is that their politics makes no sense and Kirk was simply unlucky enough to be famous and nearby.
I'm surprised at the fact that this has been on the increase since 2022. I had thought (and hoped) that the retreat from the high point in 2019-2020 was continuing. I would be interested to know if there are particular types of speech the students were most interested in stopping (I could imagine many different sides of the Gaza protests having wanted to shut each other down).
I'm a bit disappointed in this bit of writing though:
> Our colleges and universities have clearly failed, and the results are all around us.
>The good news is that in this case, the problem points directly to the solution: We need to rekindle truth-seeking and independent thought and remind both our students and our society that without free speech, neither of those things is possible.
I don't know what you mean by colleges and universities having failed! And I don't understand the claimed solution. What institution do you propose to replace colleges and universities with if you think we have failed? And what methods do you think would be able to "rekindle truth-seeking and independent thought" if you don't think colleges and universities can do that? And how does reminding society that free speech is necessary for those things generate any interest in truth-seeking and independent thought, or for free speech?
If these universities improve their speech codes; emphasize the importance of free inquiry, open debate, and free expression on their campuses; stop punishing students for voicing their opinions; adopt institutional neutrality; and take a hard line against violence, we will see a lot change.
They have failed at promoting truth seeking and protecting free expression on their campuses, but they can change.
Yeah, it is weird that it has gotten higher than the peak "Speech is violence!" days. I'm curious if the pro-violence students share an ideological bent or issue focus? There are some issues today that feel more life-and-death - trans issues or Gaza, for example, where I could see supporters feeling like allowing the opposition to speak is directly contributing to real-world harm. Or maybe it is right-wing reactionaries?
The shooting of Charlie Kirk will lead to nothing good. This administration is just looking for examples of left-wing violence to justify martial law. Here comes the hammer.
I would be more interested in seeing this put in context with the rest of society. I’ve seen other surveys suggesting that about a third of all Americans support political violence under certain conditions. Unfortunately, those surveys ask their questions differently from FIRE so it’s hard to compare.
Putting all of this on students and campuses as a unique hotbed of violence wouldn’t make sense if it turns out that political violence is gaining traction in America at large.
Anecdotally you can even see this in events of campus violence where often it’s not even students engaging in it.
Unfortunately, we don't have survey data in this post from before 2021, so we can't actually be sure that current numbers are higher than they were in 2020, or the late 2010s!
Congrats FIRE for sticking to the same byline that “college kids these days are awful and they’re getting worse.”
I’m glad you bring up the top-down authoritarian attack on our institutions. But it’s a strange pivot to then immediately say “and that’s why now, more than ever, kids need to respectfully listen to Charles Murray talk about race and IQ.”
How does one have an honest debate or even conversation with a liar?
I'm aware of Lakoff's "truth sandwich" , but I have never seen it used in practice and it is certainly not something that I could ever hope to employ in a spontaneous conversation.
There's only so far you can get with someone who isn't being honest, but you can explicitly point out the dishonesty you're sensing—and there are ways to engage even in that scenario that allow for making progress in the long term.
28% of students say they often self-censor during classroom discussions.
This seems like a good thing no? As it implies a super majority of students feel like they can speak their minds freely in the class room. "Would be at least in rare circumstances be willing to shout someone down" is a hypothetical question, while "do you do this thing" is not. So even if in hypothetical scenarios people might support something bad, functionally in practice at least on a day to day basis they are not doing this (with rare exceptions) in their interactions with other students.
Would getting that number lower be good? Absolutely. We must tread carefully though. If someone is self censoring because they are afraid of confrontation, and they feel someone disagreeing with them is confrontation (which most people don't like!) we must ensure we are not censoring disagreement. For all the excesses of wokeness, it was not mandating state crackdowns on universities on the scale we are currently seeing or arresting students for opinion pieces.
Being screamed at for being "problematic", either in person or online sucks. We should discourage it and foster an environment where disagreement is appropriately expressed.
Being shot for your beliefs, being arrested by the state, having the institution you work for gutted is a utter nightmare. I fear we will soon long for the days where the greatest threat to free speech was college students protesting to loudly or calling people nasty names.
Finding it acceptable, even rarely, to shout down a speaker in order to prevent their speech, is bad. The correct answer is “never.”
Censoring yourself on college campuses because you’re afraid of what might happen to you—by students and administrators, by the way—is bad. College campuses are where ideas are supposed to be heard, where young people learn to engage with dissent, defend their perspectives, and grow into mature human beings who can handle being disagreed with. If they’re self-censoring out of fear, that doesn’t happen. That’s bad.
Yes, there are worse things going on. We can walk and chew gum at the same time. The purpose of this post was to highlight the data we just found. Other posts (and there have been and will be many) will focus on the other issues we’re facing.
I don't think we disagree here. Ideally it should be zero! Looking forward to more articles from yah exploring this.
My primary point in my post was, specifically when it comes to the concept of self censorship, how we accurately measure these things so we don't come away with incorrect conclusions on the best way to handle this problem. I'm old enough to remember how much criticism there was of safe spaces on college campuses, with the logic being that people should be allowed to critique you in the interests of free expression/inquiry.
My second point following from the first is that because its difficult to represent complex social interactions as stats we have to be careful in how we handle this. I'm sincerely interested in how you think we handle those that self-censor because they are afraid of disagreement? The right to dissent is as fundamental to the concept of free speech as the right to assent it.
When I was in college for my engineering undergrad degree most of my fellow students (including professors) were very rightwing when it came to economics. This resulted in me being particularly selective in how I expressed my views on things like socialism, redistribution, etc to avoid drowning in a 100 "But what about Venezuela???"'s. Does this count as self censorship? probably. Does this mean that those students right to say annoying things should be limited or curtailed? no
I don't recall writing anywhere that college students are "currently among the biggest threat to freedom of speech in this country," only that the findings described above are, as you said, concerning.
However, we at FIRE have written quite extensively about how much of a threat the detention of college students by the state for their speech is. In fact, FIRE is currently suing Marco Rubio for that exact reason:
I'm not sure, but I have a feeling it's more of a "the kid is sitting too close to the TV because his eyes are bad" thing, rather than a "the kid's eyes are bad because he's sitting too close to the TV" thing.
Crazy coincidence that this article drops hours before Charlie Kirk is shot at a campus event...
Yeah, it's a horrible coincidence.
As I said on Twitter, if the first person to hurl an insult instead of a stone birthed civilization, then anyone who resorts to violence instead of using their words is attempting to kill it.
Delighting in someone's death is not just morally repugnant, it's psychologically corrosive. It's a dehumanization of the other and of the self.
And in a sense, it's two people who have died.
I would be cautous about assuming the politics of anyone unbalanced enough to do such a thing. They are as likely to be someone twisted up about Epstein Files as they are a devoted leftists. The most likely situation is that their politics makes no sense and Kirk was simply unlucky enough to be famous and nearby.
This is political violence, regardless of the politics or sanity of the shooter
I'm surprised at the fact that this has been on the increase since 2022. I had thought (and hoped) that the retreat from the high point in 2019-2020 was continuing. I would be interested to know if there are particular types of speech the students were most interested in stopping (I could imagine many different sides of the Gaza protests having wanted to shut each other down).
I'm a bit disappointed in this bit of writing though:
> Our colleges and universities have clearly failed, and the results are all around us.
>The good news is that in this case, the problem points directly to the solution: We need to rekindle truth-seeking and independent thought and remind both our students and our society that without free speech, neither of those things is possible.
I don't know what you mean by colleges and universities having failed! And I don't understand the claimed solution. What institution do you propose to replace colleges and universities with if you think we have failed? And what methods do you think would be able to "rekindle truth-seeking and independent thought" if you don't think colleges and universities can do that? And how does reminding society that free speech is necessary for those things generate any interest in truth-seeking and independent thought, or for free speech?
If these universities improve their speech codes; emphasize the importance of free inquiry, open debate, and free expression on their campuses; stop punishing students for voicing their opinions; adopt institutional neutrality; and take a hard line against violence, we will see a lot change.
They have failed at promoting truth seeking and protecting free expression on their campuses, but they can change.
Yeah, it is weird that it has gotten higher than the peak "Speech is violence!" days. I'm curious if the pro-violence students share an ideological bent or issue focus? There are some issues today that feel more life-and-death - trans issues or Gaza, for example, where I could see supporters feeling like allowing the opposition to speak is directly contributing to real-world harm. Or maybe it is right-wing reactionaries?
The shooting of Charlie Kirk will lead to nothing good. This administration is just looking for examples of left-wing violence to justify martial law. Here comes the hammer.
I would be more interested in seeing this put in context with the rest of society. I’ve seen other surveys suggesting that about a third of all Americans support political violence under certain conditions. Unfortunately, those surveys ask their questions differently from FIRE so it’s hard to compare.
Putting all of this on students and campuses as a unique hotbed of violence wouldn’t make sense if it turns out that political violence is gaining traction in America at large.
Anecdotally you can even see this in events of campus violence where often it’s not even students engaging in it.
Unfortunately, we don't have survey data in this post from before 2021, so we can't actually be sure that current numbers are higher than they were in 2020, or the late 2010s!
I would be curious how many of the pro-violence students are getting radicalized more by social media than by anything happening on campus.
Congrats FIRE for sticking to the same byline that “college kids these days are awful and they’re getting worse.”
I’m glad you bring up the top-down authoritarian attack on our institutions. But it’s a strange pivot to then immediately say “and that’s why now, more than ever, kids need to respectfully listen to Charles Murray talk about race and IQ.”
Oh, Ryan!
Do you consider lying to be free speech?
Yes. As much as I loathe lying, liars, and lies, I believe that most lies are and should remain protected speech. More here:
https://www.thefire.org/news/why-most-lies-are-protected-speech-and-why-they-should-stay-way
How does one have an honest debate or even conversation with a liar?
I'm aware of Lakoff's "truth sandwich" , but I have never seen it used in practice and it is certainly not something that I could ever hope to employ in a spontaneous conversation.
There's only so far you can get with someone who isn't being honest, but you can explicitly point out the dishonesty you're sensing—and there are ways to engage even in that scenario that allow for making progress in the long term.
www.starmanning.com
Perhaps fewer college students would deem violence to be acceptable if there was a better option than just "grin and bear it".
Thanks for the links. I will read through them.
There are plenty of options besides “grin and bear it”:
Engage in counterspeech (but not the heckler’s veto)
Walk out/ignore it.
Peacefully protest outside the event/speech/etc.
The idea that violence is the only option they have is absolutely absurd.
Self-Censoring in the Classroom
28% of students say they often self-censor during classroom discussions.
This seems like a good thing no? As it implies a super majority of students feel like they can speak their minds freely in the class room. "Would be at least in rare circumstances be willing to shout someone down" is a hypothetical question, while "do you do this thing" is not. So even if in hypothetical scenarios people might support something bad, functionally in practice at least on a day to day basis they are not doing this (with rare exceptions) in their interactions with other students.
Would getting that number lower be good? Absolutely. We must tread carefully though. If someone is self censoring because they are afraid of confrontation, and they feel someone disagreeing with them is confrontation (which most people don't like!) we must ensure we are not censoring disagreement. For all the excesses of wokeness, it was not mandating state crackdowns on universities on the scale we are currently seeing or arresting students for opinion pieces.
Being screamed at for being "problematic", either in person or online sucks. We should discourage it and foster an environment where disagreement is appropriately expressed.
Being shot for your beliefs, being arrested by the state, having the institution you work for gutted is a utter nightmare. I fear we will soon long for the days where the greatest threat to free speech was college students protesting to loudly or calling people nasty names.
28% is too many. It should be zero.
Finding it acceptable, even rarely, to shout down a speaker in order to prevent their speech, is bad. The correct answer is “never.”
Censoring yourself on college campuses because you’re afraid of what might happen to you—by students and administrators, by the way—is bad. College campuses are where ideas are supposed to be heard, where young people learn to engage with dissent, defend their perspectives, and grow into mature human beings who can handle being disagreed with. If they’re self-censoring out of fear, that doesn’t happen. That’s bad.
Yes, there are worse things going on. We can walk and chew gum at the same time. The purpose of this post was to highlight the data we just found. Other posts (and there have been and will be many) will focus on the other issues we’re facing.
I don't think we disagree here. Ideally it should be zero! Looking forward to more articles from yah exploring this.
My primary point in my post was, specifically when it comes to the concept of self censorship, how we accurately measure these things so we don't come away with incorrect conclusions on the best way to handle this problem. I'm old enough to remember how much criticism there was of safe spaces on college campuses, with the logic being that people should be allowed to critique you in the interests of free expression/inquiry.
My second point following from the first is that because its difficult to represent complex social interactions as stats we have to be careful in how we handle this. I'm sincerely interested in how you think we handle those that self-censor because they are afraid of disagreement? The right to dissent is as fundamental to the concept of free speech as the right to assent it.
You can dig into the methodology we used, as well as how and why the questions were formulated as they were, in more detail:
https://rankings.thefire.org
Self-censoring is such a vaguely defined term. Survey also relies on one’s perceptions/memory and not necessarily what you’ve actually done.
Self-censorship could include just not wanting to get into a political argument because it would derail the rest of class.
When I was in college for my engineering undergrad degree most of my fellow students (including professors) were very rightwing when it came to economics. This resulted in me being particularly selective in how I expressed my views on things like socialism, redistribution, etc to avoid drowning in a 100 "But what about Venezuela???"'s. Does this count as self censorship? probably. Does this mean that those students right to say annoying things should be limited or curtailed? no
I don't recall writing anywhere that college students are "currently among the biggest threat to freedom of speech in this country," only that the findings described above are, as you said, concerning.
However, we at FIRE have written quite extensively about how much of a threat the detention of college students by the state for their speech is. In fact, FIRE is currently suing Marco Rubio for that exact reason:
https://www.thefire.org/news/lawsuit-fire-challenges-unconstitutional-provisions-rubio-uses-crusade-deport-legal-immigrants
How much of the hostility towards free speech from students do you think is because of the effects of social media?
I'm not sure, but I have a feeling it's more of a "the kid is sitting too close to the TV because his eyes are bad" thing, rather than a "the kid's eyes are bad because he's sitting too close to the TV" thing.