EXCLUSIVE â A new survey sponsored by
Yale
Universityâs
Buckley Institute
shows again that disturbing majorities of college students have no appreciation for liberty and, worse, that they canât even think logically.
The national poll of
collegians
by McLaughlin and Associates, which will be released Tuesday, is reported exclusively here.
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The results of
last yearâs
Buckley Institute survey left me so âbile-filledâ that I wrote that âtodayâs college students are proto-totalitarian ignoramusesâ because 51% of the surveyed collegians would not necessarily look askance at âphysical violenceâ being used to prevent the airing of views they find âhateful.â This year, that number is up to 53% (with a record 45% agreeing violence might be OK and another 8% unsure).
And this year, for the first time in the nine years of the survey, a plurality agrees itâs OK to shout down a speaker (with another 10% not willing to rule it out). For the first time ever, an outright majority, 51% to 38%, favors âspeech codesâ to regulate expression on campus. A plurality of students say they canât even be close friends with someone affiliated with a different political party than themselves. For the first time ever, a plurality believes that political opinions from other students that they find âoffensiveâ should be reported to school administrators, and a plurality thinks people making such remarks should be required to undergo âsensitivity trainingâ or âre-education.â A full majority think there are certain topics that administrators should prohibit from being debated on campus.
Living down to the now-cliched but useful nickname of fragile snowflakes, students by an astonishing 65%-27% margin say professors should be required to provide âtrigger warningsâ for uncomfortable class discussions.
And thatâs just on topics related to free speech and the unfettered exchange of ideas. The left-wing views on race, gender, economics (socialism over capitalism, 37%-31%), and leniency for shoplifters (which they see as a âvictimless crimeâ) probably merit a whole separate column.
Yet apart from the views themselves, one mind-boggling aspect of the survey is the bizarre lack of anything approaching logical consistency in many studentsâ views. Itâs as if they donât even know what words mean, akin to calling raindrops âdryâ or calling fire âcoldâ â or worse, if they know what âdryâ and âcoldâ mean but donât have the intellectual capacity to understand that those words contradict rain and fire.
Hereâs why: At the exact same time the pluralities or majorities of students say they hold the attitudes mentioned above, every one of which is an abridgment of free speech and antithetical to the ideals of the
First Amendment
, even larger majorities claim to value free speech and the amendment that protects it. By a 78%-14% margin, students say the First Amendment should be followed and respected, and by a 69% to 26% margin, they say it is more important for a college to encourage free speech and intellectual diversity rather than preventing offensive dialogue. And an overwhelming 85% say that hearing opinions with which they disagree will prepare them to be better leaders.
Obviously, the numbers on those three questions sound encouraging. Yet when asked specifically, as noted above, significant percentages of students who say colleges should encourage free speech also, at the very same time, support speech codes, speech disruption, and even violence against unwanted speakers. How can a third of college students be so ignorant, or so unable to connect cause and effect, that they say they value free speech but then want it simultaneously banished?
Whatâs next â massive support for trials by jury at the same time they advocate summary executions without hearing evidence? Or maybe a commitment to democracy while supporting a dictator for life?
These kids are not all right. If this sort of disdain for basic free expression, especially when combined with such pathetic irrationality, is what the nationâs future holds, then the republic may be doomed to extinction.
