Record Share of U.S. College Students Endorse Violence to Silence Controversial Speakers
Over half of U.S. undergraduates now favor banning controversial speakers, and a record 34% say violence is acceptable to stop them, a new six-year study finds.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression released its sixth-year poll of almost 300,000 U.S. college students, revealing that 54% now think controversial speakers should be prohibited on campus and 34% consider violence an acceptable way to silence them, up from 20% in 2022. Support for allowing speakers to express conservative positions such as labeling transgender people a mental disorder or calling Black Lives Matter a hate group fell to about a quarter of respondents.
Similar declines appeared for left-leaning statements, indicating overall shrinking tolerance for contentious ideas. Massachusetts liberal-arts colleges dominated the list of the ten most intolerant campuses, with Mount Holyoke, Smith and Wellesley reporting over 75% backing bans. More permissive institutions included Michigan Tech, Kansas State and Montana State, while Ivy League schools like Princeton, Stanford and Harvard showed moderate levels of tolerance. The survey also identified the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, abortion and the 2024 presidential election as the most difficult topics for students to discuss.
Why it matters
Growing acceptance of violence to curb speech threatens campus free-expression norms and broader democratic debate.
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