70% of Students Believe Speech Can Be 'As Damaging as Physical Violence'

A new Knight Foundation-Ipsos study shows a decline in students’ views concerning the state of free speech on college campuses.

The study, released on Tuesday, reveals several key findings, including that 70 percent of students “believe that speech can be as damaging as physical violence,” as two in three students report “self-censoring” on some topics during classroom discussions. 

Republican students self-censor more, with 49 percent self-censoring on three or more topics versus 38 percent of Democrats and 40 percent of independents. “Republicans also tend to be more likely to report self-censoring on gender or LGBTQ+ issues (55%), racial issues (44%), and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) issues (33%) than Democrats (32%, 30%, 15%) or independents (41%, 37%, 26%),” the results show.

1,678 currently enrolled college students aged 18 to 24 participated in the poll from March 7-28. Only 43 percent of these students feel that freedom of speech is very secure or secure today — that’s down from 73 percent of students who felt the same in 2016. 

Democrat students are also fueling the decrease in the percentage of those who believe free speech is secure. In 2021, 61 percent of Democrats said free speech was secure; that figure is 51 percent.