A new survey of students’ free speech attitudes has both encouraging and worrying findings.
by RobSoave
Reason.com
While most students think their professors adequately encourage diverse viewpoints in the classroom, don’t want speakers disinvited from campus, and are comfortable sharing controversial opinions, 85 percent of liberals think professors who say something offensive should be reported to the university.
That’s according to a new survey of student attitudes conducted by North Dakota State University’s Sheila and Robert Challey Institute for Global Innovation and Growth. Many of the results were positive: Most students—both liberals and conservatives—said their professors create environments that allow for many different viewpoints to be shared. Large majorities also opposed the rejection of controversial speakers from campus.
In general, conservative respondents were more supportive of free speech norms—and also more fearful that they would be punished for speaking up—than liberal students. But on many questions, majorities of both groups responded the way a free speech supporter would.