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Freshmen at Yale Want Stronger Free Speech Protections

Freshmen at Yale Want Stronger Free Speech Protections

“The freshman class came to campus in the middle of serious debate, on campus and nationally, about free speech and resoundingly decided that free speech was the right way forward.”

It’s about time some college students demanded more free speech and not less.

The College Fix reports:

‘Countercultural groundswell’: Yale freshmen want stronger free speech protections

Freshmen at Yale University voiced strong support for free speech compared to their older peers in a new poll, giving rise to hopes for the future of the Ivy League campus.

The Yale Undergraduate Student Survey by the Buckley Institute found a “significant turn in favor of free speech, driven largely” by freshmen.

“It is very encouraging that the newest class at Yale is dramatically more supportive of free speech and open discussion than its predecessors,” Lauren Noble, founder and executive director of the Buckley Institute, said in an email to The College Fix.

“The freshman class came to campus in the middle of serious debate, on campus and nationally, about free speech and resoundingly decided that free speech was the right way forward.”

Noble said she believes the results echo “a broader cultural vibe shift [that] will have an impact on Yale long into the future.”

“While it is too soon to eulogize censorship and DEI on campus, this indicates that the momentum is on the side of open expression,” she said.

The survey found 69 percent of the freshman class “strongly agreed that Yale should respect First Amendment rights.” Only 52 percent of seniors and 47 percent of juniors said the same.

Freshmen also were the most likely to strongly oppose shouting down speakers and support disciplining those who disrupt speeches. What’s more, 94 percent of freshmen said the campus should allow controversial speakers.

Notably, the percentage of students overall who report having “heard Yale discuss the value of free speech often almost doubled” since 2023, from 28 percent to 50 percent.

Additionally, the percentage of students who said they often self-censor dropped from 44 percent to 39 percent.

However, 75 percent of Republican students and 47 percent of independents still report self censoring, compared to 26 percent of Democrats.

Jake McDonald, a law student and president of the Yale Federalist Society, said he has noticed a view shift among students within the past year that matches the survey results.

Back in 2022, Yale students shouted down conservative attorney Kristen Waggoner on a panel hosted by McDonald’s organization, The Fix reported.

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Comments

This just means that the freshman class hasn’t been sufficiently indoctrinated yet. There is still time.

    henrybowman in reply to EdReynolds. | January 22, 2025 at 1:22 pm

    Yeah… I’m dubious that a freshman class fresh out of the indoctrination of four years in a Biden Administration high school suddenly somehow caught MAGA.

We’ll see. I doubt this will last more than the end of February before the faculty of the Gulag has indoctrinated this out of them.