Much depends on who you invite. A popular fellow on the college circuit in my Class of '73 era was George Wallace, a man who could expect placards denouncing him as he entered a campus auditorium, and some pointed questions at the end, but no disruption of content. We all knew who is was and why people voted for him. He spoke uninterrupted. He also, as an invited guest with segregtion a settled issue, knew not to advocate for return to Jim Crow when he spoke at colleges and not to help the kitchen crew warm up the ovens when he spoke at Bnai Brith. What we have now seems a shift from expression of points of view to an intent to provoke or target segments of the audience. This occurs at both ends. The speakers are invited by a group on campus with authority or funds, chosen with the expectation they will provoke LGBT, Zionists, Islamists, or some other target as the reason for their selection. That did not happen fifty years ago, when I got to learn from Ralph Nader, Dr. Spock, an irritible Isaac Asomov, Elie Wiesel, and quite few others brought to campus because of their prior achievements, not their ability or intent to incite.
I am reminded of the fierce debate that occurred when C-SPAN wanted to put cameras on the floor of the House and the Senate. The biggest objection was that it would cause members to grandstand for the audience at home, not their colleagues in the legislature.
"The speakers are invited by a group on campus with authority or funds, chosen with the expectation they will provoke..."
Exactly. While free speech is a virtue, it is also a virtue for groups inviting speakers to find responsible speakers who add to the discussion rather than outrage.
Well, a start is that the sponsoring organization needs to take ownership of such statements. Not that the endorse every word an invited speaker says, but that they are affirming the speaker is a person within the bounds of their group. It would not solve all problems, but it would help.
If, as is the case on college campuses, you have multiple groups with various views, each inviting speakers that generally reflect their views and concerns achieves that goal. Speakers whose sole purpose is to "own the libs" or "bash the fascists" don't add to the discussion.
Free Speech for Me But Not for Thee (Nat Hentoff) is the go-to book for this (despite its age).
The whole section at the end about marginalised groups being the ones most likely to reject complete free speech certainly mirrors my personal experience. The people who are most likely to want to ban speakers are those in the groups most likely to have experienced personal abuse and negative systemic power imbalances. A black or gay person is more likely to significantly object to a speaker who has, for example, advocated for violence against such groups. People who say "a healthy university would suspend or expel students" are, again from my personal experience, highly likely to be in majority groups that have never been directly targetted by speakers saying that they're not really people.
I would suspend any group that brings in speakers that put forth oppression of minority groups, be they racial, ethnic, gender, or religious. As mentioned in the story, white, cis, especially men, who control power seem to have little backbone for protecting those who do not have power.
What FIRE study completely ignores (and sadly this post) is the dominant culture and power structure of this country. Minority positions and groups do not get the voice that conservative, white positions get in the US. For those minority groups to be heard they need to make noise, make people not walk in a straight path, etc. It is easy to value decorum (because that is what this survey is in part measuring) when your values are easily and regularly presented. I will use a real world example. My alma mater invited the Federalist Society (FS) to speak at the law school. Students from the law school and rest of the university came to the speech, protested for two minutes, and left the lecture hall, where the members of the Federalist Society were able to say everything they wanted. The alumni pages were aflame with calls to expel all the students because they "were against free speech". Job offers were rescinded, university investigations were started against the students. The FS is supported by vast wealth, yields enormous influence in judicial picks, has easy access to powerful conservative politicians, and has its views readily advanced in the op-ed pages of major newspapers. The protesters were people of color, members of the LGBTQ+ community that are subject to and suffer the consequences of those in the FS. A classmate (female, white and wealthy) complained that while she mostly agreed with the students, she supported them being expelled because they should have sat quietly and held signs in their laps. The students are essentially powerless, to be heard in our society requires making noise, as the history of civil rights advocacy has demonstrated over and over. Valuing decorum makes it easy to ignore the voices of the powerless. Students quietly sitting with signs in their laps are easy to ignore while you strip them of their voting rights by knocking down the Voting Rights Act, and of their healthcare with you allow states deny healthcare and even bathrooms to trans people, as the six members of the FS on the Supreme Court continue to to. Real suppression of speech by those in power, by threatening the research funding of a university in order to kill all speech that looks like "DEI", legislatures eliminating gender and racial study departments at universities, are mostly ignored. FIRE has only grudgingly, and after long delay responded to such actions, and mostly doesn't respond at all. The FIRE survey is worded so as to ignore actual power and how it is yielded in the US, and produce a result that values decorum over actual free speech. This survey and results complete miss the mark, and are an example of the structural racism, homophobia, that ultimately reinforce the position of the majority. When a legislature closes a woman's studies, or Hispanic studies department, and cancel's the classes so those positions can't be taught at a university, those against free speech are actually the students that rally against the closures by making someone walk around their protest, or being loud at a meeting. That completely inverts what is actually happening in the country today.
Finally, these posts are mostly about religion, which is why I pay to be here. As a recent post pointed out, Christianity is still the majority faith of the country. The leader of that faith hung out with the powerless, and advocated for them. He wasn't polite, he lacked decorum. He got angry, he turned over tables, and so much more. There might be lessons there for us too.
Thank you for the extensive assessment and matching it to contemporary campus realities. From an historical perspective, being considerably older, I will politely challenge some of the assumptions. Campus speakers in the 1970s clearly spoke to power. That's what Dr. Spock and Ralph Nader were about. Office holders and former elected and appointed officials were also invited by Connaissance, the campus organization that brought prominent speakers. Civil rights figures did not often come to my school but were very much on the speakers circuit across America. We had creators of the first Earth Day. And VP Agnew did his share of speaking while holding office. Moreover, individual organizations from religious centers like Hillel or Newman and political student groups of Young Democrats/Republicans had funds to bring people to campus for events open to all students and employees. What differed is the world was not seen as mutually exclusive oppressor/oppressed populations. And yes, derech eretz, my Jewish term for civility, was coin of the realm.
I suspect that if you gave samples of the type of speech being obstructed you might see diferent results. Consider a few cases: (a) Jesus Christ as a false messiah; (b) Facist or Communist; (c) Ending tax exemptions for religious organizations; (d) banning labor unions.
This report was a good reminder to always keep reading - at the outset it seemed to hold little value, but when lined up via religious tradition, clear possibilities arose.
Note that each group (incl Atheist) that was more comfortable interfering with speeches contained more people who reject traditional authority & hierarchies (for Atheists & Agnostics, Freud's _Society and Its Discontents_ explored that outlook in depth). Those who are more comfortable with "offices of authority" and hierarchies seemed to line up well, also - culminating in LDS adherents.
Likewise, Buddhists teach that God is non-anthropomorphic, while weekly worship attenders are accustomed to sometimes hearing things with which they disagree, or at least challenge them.
This is a tough topic. I often hear there is no such thing as a stupid question. Not so, I hear them all of the time. I hear stupid answers and stupid statements of "fact". But to the person asking the question, answering one or stating a fact, it doesn't seem stupid and I think that the herd mentality that decrees what is and is not stupid is at the core of the problem. I think the answer here is more one of personal reflection and giving thought to the Fruit of the Spirit. Taking a deep breath, refraining from attacking what others say and then, if one can, gently entering a debate would be good for everyone.
What you say about politicians grandstanding is true and exactly my point because they do it to provoke and when the media captures something stupid they amplify it. Maybe that is justice but it doesn't help.
I think the combination of the middle two (rarely+sometimes) would actually make for a more interesting group to study than the Sometimes+Always. I wonder if there are other questions in the battery that would suss out a difference in nuanced thinking vs the two outlier groups.
I really like the conclusion that you got to about the groups that are more likely to excuse shouting down speech. This is where you get a Social Psychology co-author.
I believe that support for the behavior is a different concept than "free speech" "rights"; the down shouters also have free speech rights to be jerks .
The "shout down" act is rated as more acceptable than "block" or "violence" by all religious groups. It's also the one option that only involves speech, and not a physical act. This makes support or not for it somewhat ambiguous and dependent on context. Is someone accepting it because they see it as a possible example of "free speech?" What if speech was occurring in a public forum, soapbox style? This could contribute to higher acceptance by atheists and like as they tend to belong to humanist groups that promote free speech.
Role of religion also depends on particular topic under consideration. For example, note below that LDS group (low mean) is more likely to ban speaker (unlike Ryan's graph in which they were least accepting of "shouting down"), along with "Christian" and "Other" respondents. Atheists are now least likely to ban speaker. Not clear who falls in Christian and Other categories, also more prone to ban such a speaker. Somewhat ambiguous as well. What does "should not allow" mean in terms of permissible actions?
Perhaps what is needed is combination of both types of questions ... what acts are justified for what topics?
Anti Gun / Ban 2nd Amendment speaker: 1 = Definitely not allow, 4 = Definitely should
Do we know if these opinions are shifting over time? I'm guessing not, since FIRE probably only added this battery recently?
I'd echo the other comments here that if opinions are shifting, I don't think they are being driven primarily by the students but by the changing quality of the speakers instead.
For example, I can't imagine Milo Yiannopoulos being given a speech platform in the 1960s, but he was invited to speak at my college in the 2010s and (unsurprisingly) made overtures to political violence.
Much depends on who you invite. A popular fellow on the college circuit in my Class of '73 era was George Wallace, a man who could expect placards denouncing him as he entered a campus auditorium, and some pointed questions at the end, but no disruption of content. We all knew who is was and why people voted for him. He spoke uninterrupted. He also, as an invited guest with segregtion a settled issue, knew not to advocate for return to Jim Crow when he spoke at colleges and not to help the kitchen crew warm up the ovens when he spoke at Bnai Brith. What we have now seems a shift from expression of points of view to an intent to provoke or target segments of the audience. This occurs at both ends. The speakers are invited by a group on campus with authority or funds, chosen with the expectation they will provoke LGBT, Zionists, Islamists, or some other target as the reason for their selection. That did not happen fifty years ago, when I got to learn from Ralph Nader, Dr. Spock, an irritible Isaac Asomov, Elie Wiesel, and quite few others brought to campus because of their prior achievements, not their ability or intent to incite.
I am reminded of the fierce debate that occurred when C-SPAN wanted to put cameras on the floor of the House and the Senate. The biggest objection was that it would cause members to grandstand for the audience at home, not their colleagues in the legislature.
And, well....
"The speakers are invited by a group on campus with authority or funds, chosen with the expectation they will provoke..."
Exactly. While free speech is a virtue, it is also a virtue for groups inviting speakers to find responsible speakers who add to the discussion rather than outrage.
I guess this is where it gets muddy, though.
Some ideas, by their very nature, are provocative.
Now, I think we all know some speakers relish their ability to be more incendiary than necessary.
But someone saying, "Transgenderism is a mental disorder" even in a calm, emotionless tone is going to rile some folks up.
Well, a start is that the sponsoring organization needs to take ownership of such statements. Not that the endorse every word an invited speaker says, but that they are affirming the speaker is a person within the bounds of their group. It would not solve all problems, but it would help.
It's disliked speakers who add to the discussion. Otherwise you've just got an echo chamber.
If, as is the case on college campuses, you have multiple groups with various views, each inviting speakers that generally reflect their views and concerns achieves that goal. Speakers whose sole purpose is to "own the libs" or "bash the fascists" don't add to the discussion.
Free Speech for Me But Not for Thee (Nat Hentoff) is the go-to book for this (despite its age).
The whole section at the end about marginalised groups being the ones most likely to reject complete free speech certainly mirrors my personal experience. The people who are most likely to want to ban speakers are those in the groups most likely to have experienced personal abuse and negative systemic power imbalances. A black or gay person is more likely to significantly object to a speaker who has, for example, advocated for violence against such groups. People who say "a healthy university would suspend or expel students" are, again from my personal experience, highly likely to be in majority groups that have never been directly targetted by speakers saying that they're not really people.
Thanks for the analysis.
A healthy university would suspend or expel students who attempt to shut down free speech. I've said so for decades.
I would suspend any group that brings in speakers that put forth oppression of minority groups, be they racial, ethnic, gender, or religious. As mentioned in the story, white, cis, especially men, who control power seem to have little backbone for protecting those who do not have power.
What FIRE study completely ignores (and sadly this post) is the dominant culture and power structure of this country. Minority positions and groups do not get the voice that conservative, white positions get in the US. For those minority groups to be heard they need to make noise, make people not walk in a straight path, etc. It is easy to value decorum (because that is what this survey is in part measuring) when your values are easily and regularly presented. I will use a real world example. My alma mater invited the Federalist Society (FS) to speak at the law school. Students from the law school and rest of the university came to the speech, protested for two minutes, and left the lecture hall, where the members of the Federalist Society were able to say everything they wanted. The alumni pages were aflame with calls to expel all the students because they "were against free speech". Job offers were rescinded, university investigations were started against the students. The FS is supported by vast wealth, yields enormous influence in judicial picks, has easy access to powerful conservative politicians, and has its views readily advanced in the op-ed pages of major newspapers. The protesters were people of color, members of the LGBTQ+ community that are subject to and suffer the consequences of those in the FS. A classmate (female, white and wealthy) complained that while she mostly agreed with the students, she supported them being expelled because they should have sat quietly and held signs in their laps. The students are essentially powerless, to be heard in our society requires making noise, as the history of civil rights advocacy has demonstrated over and over. Valuing decorum makes it easy to ignore the voices of the powerless. Students quietly sitting with signs in their laps are easy to ignore while you strip them of their voting rights by knocking down the Voting Rights Act, and of their healthcare with you allow states deny healthcare and even bathrooms to trans people, as the six members of the FS on the Supreme Court continue to to. Real suppression of speech by those in power, by threatening the research funding of a university in order to kill all speech that looks like "DEI", legislatures eliminating gender and racial study departments at universities, are mostly ignored. FIRE has only grudgingly, and after long delay responded to such actions, and mostly doesn't respond at all. The FIRE survey is worded so as to ignore actual power and how it is yielded in the US, and produce a result that values decorum over actual free speech. This survey and results complete miss the mark, and are an example of the structural racism, homophobia, that ultimately reinforce the position of the majority. When a legislature closes a woman's studies, or Hispanic studies department, and cancel's the classes so those positions can't be taught at a university, those against free speech are actually the students that rally against the closures by making someone walk around their protest, or being loud at a meeting. That completely inverts what is actually happening in the country today.
Finally, these posts are mostly about religion, which is why I pay to be here. As a recent post pointed out, Christianity is still the majority faith of the country. The leader of that faith hung out with the powerless, and advocated for them. He wasn't polite, he lacked decorum. He got angry, he turned over tables, and so much more. There might be lessons there for us too.
Thank you for the extensive assessment and matching it to contemporary campus realities. From an historical perspective, being considerably older, I will politely challenge some of the assumptions. Campus speakers in the 1970s clearly spoke to power. That's what Dr. Spock and Ralph Nader were about. Office holders and former elected and appointed officials were also invited by Connaissance, the campus organization that brought prominent speakers. Civil rights figures did not often come to my school but were very much on the speakers circuit across America. We had creators of the first Earth Day. And VP Agnew did his share of speaking while holding office. Moreover, individual organizations from religious centers like Hillel or Newman and political student groups of Young Democrats/Republicans had funds to bring people to campus for events open to all students and employees. What differed is the world was not seen as mutually exclusive oppressor/oppressed populations. And yes, derech eretz, my Jewish term for civility, was coin of the realm.
I suspect that if you gave samples of the type of speech being obstructed you might see diferent results. Consider a few cases: (a) Jesus Christ as a false messiah; (b) Facist or Communist; (c) Ending tax exemptions for religious organizations; (d) banning labor unions.
Why do Conservative Speakers need additional security when they speak on Campus? Because Progressives love political violence.
This report was a good reminder to always keep reading - at the outset it seemed to hold little value, but when lined up via religious tradition, clear possibilities arose.
Note that each group (incl Atheist) that was more comfortable interfering with speeches contained more people who reject traditional authority & hierarchies (for Atheists & Agnostics, Freud's _Society and Its Discontents_ explored that outlook in depth). Those who are more comfortable with "offices of authority" and hierarchies seemed to line up well, also - culminating in LDS adherents.
Likewise, Buddhists teach that God is non-anthropomorphic, while weekly worship attenders are accustomed to sometimes hearing things with which they disagree, or at least challenge them.
This is a tough topic. I often hear there is no such thing as a stupid question. Not so, I hear them all of the time. I hear stupid answers and stupid statements of "fact". But to the person asking the question, answering one or stating a fact, it doesn't seem stupid and I think that the herd mentality that decrees what is and is not stupid is at the core of the problem. I think the answer here is more one of personal reflection and giving thought to the Fruit of the Spirit. Taking a deep breath, refraining from attacking what others say and then, if one can, gently entering a debate would be good for everyone.
What you say about politicians grandstanding is true and exactly my point because they do it to provoke and when the media captures something stupid they amplify it. Maybe that is justice but it doesn't help.
I'll just put an Amen on that last quote.
I think the combination of the middle two (rarely+sometimes) would actually make for a more interesting group to study than the Sometimes+Always. I wonder if there are other questions in the battery that would suss out a difference in nuanced thinking vs the two outlier groups.
I really like the conclusion that you got to about the groups that are more likely to excuse shouting down speech. This is where you get a Social Psychology co-author.
I believe that support for the behavior is a different concept than "free speech" "rights"; the down shouters also have free speech rights to be jerks .
Nice presentation, but issues are complex.
The "shout down" act is rated as more acceptable than "block" or "violence" by all religious groups. It's also the one option that only involves speech, and not a physical act. This makes support or not for it somewhat ambiguous and dependent on context. Is someone accepting it because they see it as a possible example of "free speech?" What if speech was occurring in a public forum, soapbox style? This could contribute to higher acceptance by atheists and like as they tend to belong to humanist groups that promote free speech.
Role of religion also depends on particular topic under consideration. For example, note below that LDS group (low mean) is more likely to ban speaker (unlike Ryan's graph in which they were least accepting of "shouting down"), along with "Christian" and "Other" respondents. Atheists are now least likely to ban speaker. Not clear who falls in Christian and Other categories, also more prone to ban such a speaker. Somewhat ambiguous as well. What does "should not allow" mean in terms of permissible actions?
Perhaps what is needed is combination of both types of questions ... what acts are justified for what topics?
Anti Gun / Ban 2nd Amendment speaker: 1 = Definitely not allow, 4 = Definitely should
Mean N
1 Protestant 2.71 8630
2 Catholic 2.64 14830
3 Mormon/LDS 2.55 1623
4 Orthodox 2.64 1599
5 Jewish 2.89 3390
6 Muslim 2.84 2888
7 Atheist 2.92 8973
8 Agnostic 2.84 11690
9 Nothing 2.73 16253
10 Christian 2.55 14152
11 Buddhist 2.72 1708
12 Hindu 2.79 2460
13 Other 2.66 5897
Total 2.72 94093
Please use 0 to 100% on all your figures, not 20-80 or 30-60. Smaller ranges deceive the eye.
This is something that I've thought about a lot. I'm not sure that it's always necessary to range every scale from 0-100%.
In fact, I think that there are instances when that's actually not the wise thing to do.
But I almost always put the actual percentage in the graphs so that readers can quickly see what those are without even looking at the scale.
Do we know if these opinions are shifting over time? I'm guessing not, since FIRE probably only added this battery recently?
I'd echo the other comments here that if opinions are shifting, I don't think they are being driven primarily by the students but by the changing quality of the speakers instead.
For example, I can't imagine Milo Yiannopoulos being given a speech platform in the 1960s, but he was invited to speak at my college in the 2010s and (unsurprisingly) made overtures to political violence.
Not really. FIRE has only been doing surveys since 2020, I think.
Perhaps the title should read "Protecting the Thought That Hates Us"...
Yes to that