70 Percent of Students ‘Believe That Speech Can Be as Damaging as Physical Violence,’ Survey Finds

A new Knight Foundation-Ipsos study shows a decline in students’ views concerning the state of free speech on college campuses.

The study, released on Tuesday, reveals several key findings, including that 70 percent of students “believe that speech can be as damaging as physical violence,” as two in three students report “self-censoring” on some topics during classroom discussions.

Republican students self-censor more, with 49 percent self-censoring on three or more topics versus 38 percent of Democrats and 40 percent of independents. “Republicans also tend to be more likely to report self-censoring on gender or LGBTQ+ issues (55%), racial issues (44%), and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) issues (33%) than Democrats (32%, 30%, 15%) or independents (41%, 37%, 26%),” the results show.

{snip} Only 43 percent of these students feel that freedom of speech is very secure or secure today — that’s down from 73 percent of students who felt the same in 2016.

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Only about half of students (54 percent) believe colleges should “allow students to be exposed to all types of speech even if they may find it offensive or biased” — that percentage has decreased from 78 percent in 2016.

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