John Villasenor’s study on free speech attitudes among college students has received some attention.
In one of the questions he asked, only 47% of students favored, “an open learning environment where students are exposed to all types of speech and viewpoints, even if it means allowing speech that is offensive or biased against certain groups of people.” In contrast, 53% favored speech restrictions to, “create a positive learning environment.”
This is a huge swing from last year when Gallup asked the same question. They found that only 22% favored speech restrictions.
This 30-point shift could be because attitudes changed rapidly. Villasenor’s study was immediately after Charlottesville, for example, and students might be more primed to think about Nazi’s marching on their campus.
It could also be because of differences in survey methods. Surveying college students is really hard. CONT.
Neal Caren (UNC), Scatterplot