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What College Students Really Think About Free Speech

Demonstrators protesting a planned appearance by Milo Yiannopoulos, a conservative provocateur and former editor at Breitbart News, at the University of California, Berkeley, last year.Credit...Ben Margot/Associated Press

To some, free speech on college campuses appears to be under attack, but what do the students themselves think? A study released on Monday offers some answers based on a survey of more than 3,000 of them.

The survey, a collaboration among five groups, finds that college students feel increasingly stifled on campus and online, and while they equally value free speech and inclusivity, they wrestle with how best to balance the two.

“What you see is a generation that’s struggling with really deep questions about how to be a pluralistic society and a pluralistic campus and how to be an open society and an open campus,” said Sam Gill, vice president of communities and learning at the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, which led the effort with Gallup, the polling company.

Students differed widely on how to strike that balance. Here’s a look at some of the findings of the survey, which was co-sponsored by the American Council on Education, the Charles Koch Foundation and the Stanton Foundation.

College students believe about equally in free expression and pluralism, with nearly 90 percent saying that free speech protections are very or extremely important to American democracy and more than 80 percent saying the same of promoting an inclusive and diverse society.

When forced to choose, a majority of students said that diversity and inclusivity were more important than free speech, though opinions differed widely by demographic.

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Protesters clashed outside the Michigan State University Pavilion before a scheduled speech by the white nationalist Richard B. Spencer this month in East Lansing.Credit...Dale G. Young/Detroit News, via Associated Press

Those who belong to groups historically or currently in positions of power — white students, men or Republicans — tended to favor free speech, while nearly two in three students who were black, women or Democrats favored inclusivity. That gap was widest along partisan lines, with 66 percent of Democrats saying inclusivity was more important and 69 percent of Republicans saying the same of free speech.

Still, a majority of students in every demographic drew a line for hate speech, saying that it does not deserve First Amendment protection.

On campus policies, students showed broad agreement that restrictions should be placed on racial slurs and costumes that promote stereotypes. They also widely supported safe spaces for those who feel upset or threatened and free speech zones where protests or partisan proselytizing is explicitly allowed. Even 70 percent of Republicans surveyed supported safe spaces on campus, an idea often dismissed by conservatives.

The study also asked students to weigh in on one of the more contentious free speech issues of the past year: professional athletes protesting for racial justice by kneeling during the national anthem. More than 75 percent of students in all but one demographic said those protests are protected by the First Amendment; 53 percent of Republican students agreed.

Students may struggle to balance free speech and inclusivity in the abstract, but they overwhelmingly and broadly prefer a learning environment that is open and permits offensive speech to one that is positive and limits it.

Still, they increasingly believe that speech is being stifled. Last year, 61 percent said that their campus climate deterred speech, up from 54 percent in 2016. That sense was widely held among students at colleges big and small, private and public. Only Hispanic students and Republicans saw a decline in that feeling of stifled speech.

Students broadly agree that liberals have it easier, with about 92 percent saying that liberals can freely express their views on campus, while only 69 percent said the same of conservatives. Democrats were just as likely as the overall student population to hold those views.

The debate over speech on campus may be growing less relevant, however, with a majority of students saying that most political and social discussion now takes place online, even if they may not feel particularly good about that shift.

The vast majority of students blame social media for an increase in hate speech, with about two in three saying that platforms like Facebook and Twitter should take responsibility to limit that speech.

Students also said they found online discussion stifling and uncivil. About 60 percent said that free expression is limited online by the ability to block contrarian views and the fear of being attacked or shamed for expressing one’s beliefs. Just 37 percent believe that the dialogue on social media is usually civil.

In general, students also lost confidence in the security of the five rights enumerated by the First Amendment. Freedom of the press suffered the most, with only 60 percent last year finding that right to be secure or very secure, compared with 81 percent the year before.

Women, black students and Democrats were the groups least likely to feel confident in those rights. Less than half of the students in each demographic said that they believed the freedom of assembly was secure or very secure, for example.

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