Survey Finds 1 in 3 Students Say Some Level of Violence Acceptable to Stop Campus Speech
“More students than ever think violence and chaos are acceptable alternatives to peaceful protest”
This survey was conducted by FIRE and released the day before the assassination of Charlie Kirk. We have tolerated this attitude for far too long.
The College Fix reports:
1 in 3 students say some level of violence acceptable to stop campus speech: survey
One in three students believe some level of violence is acceptable to stop a campus speech, according to the results of a large-scale survey released Tuesday by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.
The survey, which questioned more than 68,000 students at 257 colleges and universities nationwide on a variety of free speech topics, asked: “How acceptable would you say it is for students to engage in the following actions to protest a campus speaker? Using violence to stop a campus speech.”
Two percent said “always acceptable,” 13 percent said “sometimes acceptable,” and 19 percent said “rarely acceptable,” or about one-third of those surveyed.
When broken down by political beliefs, 7 percent of students who identified as liberal said it’s “always acceptable” to use violence to shut down speech — while 8 percent of students who identified as conservative did.
“More students than ever think violence and chaos are acceptable alternatives to peaceful protest,” FIRE Chief Research Advisor Sean Stevens said in a news release. “This finding cuts across partisan lines. It is not a liberal or conservative problem — it’s an American problem.”
“Students see speech that they oppose as threatening, and their overblown response contributes to a volatile political climate.”
A majority of students surveyed — 54 percent — also responded it was acceptable to block other students from attending a campus speech: 3 percent said “always acceptable,” 19 percent said “sometimes acceptable,” and 32 percent said “rarely acceptable.”
Again, slightly more conservative than liberal students said it was “always acceptable” to block speeches, 11 percent to 9 percent, respectively.
But overall, “Republican students were still less likely than Democrats to say they found any form of interruption acceptable, but that gap is lessening,” Inside Higher Ed reported.
Another notable finding, according to FIRE, is that for “the first time ever, a majority of students oppose their school allowing any of the six controversial speakers they were asked about onto campus — three controversial conservative speakers and three controversial liberal ones.”
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Comments
Why isn’t it a crime, an arrestable offense, to attempt to stop a sanctioned speech anywhere? Even to coordinate a protest against a speech taking place is the same as a conspiracy to strip someone of their right to free speech. There are laws in place to handle this type of civil disobedience – if we don’t enforce those laws, we deserve to lose this country.
What do you mean by “attempt to stop”? If you mean by violence, then it is already a crime, and you can be arrested for it. On the other hand you refer to coordinating a protest against a speech — that is speech, and it’s 100% protected. You have every right to protest against a speech that you don’t like, just as the speaker has the right to give it. And if you’re in a public space where you have the right to be, then you have every legal right to make as much noise as the law generally allows in that location and at that time of day, even if your intent is to drown out the speaker. It’s only if you’re on private property (including government property that has been rented or allocated for the speech) that you have to obey the owner’s rules, including shutting up and letting the speaker speak.
Remember the polls showing a slim majority of Democrats thought violence against Trump and Musk was justified?
more youth to vote gop after dem carnage>>praying for this to be true
“Republican students were still less likely than Democrats to say they found any form of interruption acceptable, but that gap is lessening,”
It’s standard Prisoner’s Dilemma outcome.
If no one ever stops the thugs, you have to adopt the thugs’ own tactics.
Conservatives have been persecuted and denied free speech for so long that they’re shifting to apply Leftist standards to the Left – you do not have a right to say that which we do not approve of.