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[Editor's note: This story originally was published by Real Clear Education.]
By Samuel Abrams
Real Clear Education
A provocative argument making the rounds on social media asserts that today’s Ivy League students are both more woke and more passive on political issues compared to students at religious colleges and universities. R.R. Reno originally made this case in the Wall Street Journal, where he asserted that students are more balanced intellectually and temperamentally when they come from small, religiously oriented colleges like Hillsdale, or “quirky small Catholic colleges such as Thomas Aquinas College, Wyoming Catholic College and the University of Dallas.”
At these smaller and often religious schools, Reno believes, students “haven’t been deformed by the toxic political correctness that leaders of elite universities have allowed to become dominant.” While it is certainly true that students at small liberal arts colleges are generally more liberal than their university counterparts, and that schools in some regions are more politically balanced than others, Reno’s conclusions about elite schools are overstated.
Data from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) reveal a more nuanced picture of college students today, where the differences between elite schools and religiously leaning schools are not nearly as wide as many believe. A new FIRE survey, capturing the voices of over 37,000 students at 159 colleges and universities across the country, finds that while some students thrive on shouting down others, many other students reject cancel culture.
More specifically, the FIRE data reveal that close to three-quarters (72 percent) of students at elite schools – defined here as the top 20 colleges and universities, according to U.S. News, including schools like Yale and Middlebury – say that there are cases in which trying to disrupt a speaker is justifiable. At schools ranked below 100, such as Texas Tech and the University of Central Florida, the proportion of students holding these views drops to 62 percent.
Looking at the almost 3,000 students in the FIRE sample enrolled in religious schools – schools ranging from Hillsdale to DePaul to St. Louis University – the data show that their views are more pro-free-speech than those of students at elite schools, but not by a landslide. The majority (62 percent) of students in religious schools argue that there are cases where shouting down a speaker is justifiable, compared to 67 percent of those at secular schools.
Regarding the acceptability of blocking one’s peers from attending a campus presentation, 40 percent of students overall said that there were cases where such behavior could be justified. In comparison, 50 percent of students at the top 20 schools think that stopping their classmates from hearing someone else’s views is acceptable. The numbers drop from there: just over a third (35 percent) of students enrolled in schools ranked below 100 feel that there are cases where blocking their peers is acceptable. At religious schools, 39 percent of students state that they can find a reason to block their peers from hearing a campus speaker, compared to 42 percent of students at secular schools. There are differences here among elite and religious schools – but again, they are not huge.
Finally, almost a quarter (23 percent) of students nationwide believe that violent acts could be justifiable to prevent speech. This alarmingly high figure is even higher at the nation’s elite colleges. Thirty percent of students at the top 20 colleges and universities think that there are cases where the use of violence to prevent someone from speaking is acceptable. The number drops notably among students at schools ranked below 100, where only 20 percent accept violence as a means to stop speech. As for religious schools, approximately one in five (21 percent) students say that they can find cases where violence would be acceptable – but this is only three points lower than those saying so in secular schools (24 percent).
It’s true, then, that the more elite the school, the more likely that its students are willing to silence speech. But problems with speech are not unique to elite schools. Sadly, the data show that speech is under threat at schools across the country, and that students at religiously oriented schools are not dramatically better on issues related to free expression than students elsewhere.
Thus, we should avoid making blanket judgments about students based exclusively on where they attend college. The wiser course is to evaluate students on their free-speech views and behavior – as on other issues – as individuals.
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