Study Reveals Almost 90 Percent of Students Fake Progressive Views to Appease Liberal Profs
“In a campus environment where grades, leadership, and peer belonging often hinge on fluency in performative morality, young adults quickly learn to rehearse what is safe”
This makes perfect sense and is also a terrible reflection on these professors. The respect they get isn’t even real.
Campus Reform reports:
Study finds nearly 90 percent of students fake progressive views to appease liberal professors
A new study has concluded that college students are increasingly faking conformity to liberal opinions in order to academically succeed.
The study, published on Aug. 12, was spearheaded by Northwestern University researchers Forest Romm and Kevin Waldman.
Between 2023 and 2025, the researchers conducted 1,452 confidential interviews with undergraduate students at both Northwestern University and the University of Michigan to examine how ideological pressure influences students’ beliefs.
They found that 88 percent of students admitted to pretending to harbor more progressive views than they genuinely endorse with the aim of succeeding academically or socially.
“We do not fault students for perpetuating a climate that is hostile to intellectual integrity,” Romm and Waldman wrote about the results. “We fault the faculty, administrators, and institutional leaders who built a system that rewards moral theater while punishing inquiry.”
More than 80 percent of surveyed students reported submitting classwork misrepresenting their true beliefs.
Regarding controversial topics such as gender, politics, and family, students consistently censored themselves. While 77 percent said they disagreed with the idea that gender identity should override biological sex in contexts like sports and healthcare, virtually none felt safe voicing that view.
Romm and Waldman argue that the climate of compliance in higher education undermines identity formation—replacing conviction with performance.
“These students were not cynical, but adaptive,” they wrote. “In a campus environment where grades, leadership, and peer belonging often hinge on fluency in performative morality, young adults quickly learn to rehearse what is safe.”
Waldman told Campus Reform that one of the “most compelling” findings of the study is the “role of fear” in the findings, and that the same influences affect students and professors alike.
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Comments
“Look at me.
Look at me.
You are the Nazis now.”
This is obvious to anyone who has taught in colleges in the past 20 years. Students will say what they think their professors want to hear. The problem is that after 2 or 3 years the students start to believe the bullshit. That’s what indoctrination is all about.
Not sure of the accuracy of the percentage. The campus protests argue otherwise. I do believe they write what the progressive teacher expects but I’m not sure how much their personal views deviate from that.
Its no longer considered sufficient to just say that you are “independent” or “non-aligned”. Leftists don’t tolerate freedom of thought or conscience. There is no middle ground anymore.
Behavior can be both adaptive and cynical.