The majority of students report of having been cowed into silence for fear of being mocked, disparaged or ostracized by peers or faculty at least once during their college career, according to a survey on campus free speech.
Sixty percent of students said they chose at least once to stay silent about their point of view out of “fear of how others would respond” in the 2020 College Free Speech Rankings, the first online survey of more than 20,000 students at 55 major American colleges. The results were published Tuesday by online survey and analytics firm College Pulse, the nonprofit Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) and RealClearEducation.com.
Arizona State University, the University of California, Los Angeles and Duke University landed among the top 10 schools that uphold free speech. Dartmouth College, DePauw University and Syracuse University ranked near the bottom in the survey.
DePauw University President Lori S. White said the school strives to uphold two values — “freedom of speech and expression, and diversity and inclusion.”
“We want to be a university where all students, no matter where they reside on the political spectrum or any other form of identity, believe they can express themselves freely,” Ms. White told The Washington Times.
Tuesday’s results show that 72% of conservative students — compared to 55% of liberal students — reported self-censoring in a classroom or campus setting. The survey posed questions about abortion, gun control and race to gauge students’ perceptions of whether controversial viewpoints could be espoused by visiting speakers.
Four out of 5 students said violence is “never” acceptable to thwart a campus speaker’s presentation, but roughly one-third of Ivy League students said it was “always” or “sometimes” acceptable to shout down a speaker.
Sam Abrams, a leading critic of left-wing intelligentsia on college campuses, says the results are not surprising, attributing students’ reticence to unspoken political speech codes, not intellectual shyness.
“This is ideological,” said Mr. Abrams, a political science professor at Sarah Lawrence College and a fellow with the American Enterprise Institute. “There was an openness 20 years ago [on college campuses] and that openness began to close in about 2010.” He was not involved in the college rankings survey.
Conservative students are not the only ones who have felt the need to keep silent: Only 35% of liberal students at Brigham Young University (compared to nearly 60% of conservatives) said they believe their school upheld free speech principles.
Liberal students, more than their conservative classmates, at Louisiana State University and Texas A&M University also reported fear of speaking their mind on campus. At Oklahoma State University, 39% of liberals (compared to 52% of conservatives) gave favorable reports of uninhibited expression on campus.
Top marks overall went to the University of Chicago, where liberal and conservative pluralities reported they believe the school prioritizes free speech. The study noted the 2014 adoption of a campuswide free speech manifesto that has since become the gold-standard at many institutions of higher education around the country.
“These efforts appear to have paid off,” the report states.
FIRE, which touted the survey as the largest ever on campus free speech, surveyed students on a range of questions, dealing with openness, tolerance and perceptions about institutional commitment to viewpoint diversity. The researchers weighted responses to derive at scores, asking questions about whether speakers theorizing that Black Lives Matter is a “hate group” or that abortion “should be completely illegal” would be allowed to speak on campus.
Only 7% of students supported allowing a speaker on campus who promoted the idea that “some racial groups are less intelligent than others.” Forty-five percent of students said abortion was “difficult” to talk about, while 43% found conversations about race to be tricky.
Mr. Abrams, who faced down an attempt by students to remove his tenure status for his conservative viewpoints, says he’d like to see in the future a broader survey higher education, including more than the nation’s largest universities or Ivy League schools.
“Harvard students come in polished They’re better equipped to speak out,” Mr. Abrams said. “But there are huge numbers of students who are not as strong or confident and will risk staying silent that much more.”
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