Survey Finds Students at UNC Chapel Hill Want to Hear More Conservative Speakers

Survey Finds Students at UNC Chapel Hill Want to Hear More Conservative Speakers

Well, this is a pleasant surprise. There’s a simple way to find out if this is accurate.

The College Fix reports:

Even liberal students want to hear more conservative speakers at UNC, survey finds

University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill students across the political spectrum want to hear more conservative speakers on the left-dominated campus.

That’s among the surprising findings from a survey by three UNC professors regarding undergraduate experiences with freedom of expression on the flagship campus.

With the topics of “free expression and constructive dialogue” hotly discussed across the country, the researchers “wanted to better understand these issues at our own institution” and “introduce new information into the national conversation,” they wrote on the frequently asked questions page.

Other findings echo previous research on self-expression among students: that self-identified conservatives inhibit their expression more than self-identified liberals and moderates, to protect both their grades and their social status.

This is despite half of conservative students saying they believe their professors welcome the expression of different viewpoints in the classroom. Liberals also support “blocking a speaker they disagree with” at far higher rates than do conservatives and moderates.

The director of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Campus Free Expression Project praised the findings in a phone interview with The College Fix.

“We know [that] the 2020 election campaign is going to be really a difficult one,” Jacqueline Merrill said. The study shows that “students from all across the spectrums want more chances to see [people] from across the spectrum possess their ideas in dialogue with one another and model that respectful debate for students as well.”

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