A scarier agenda for today’s student militants
My hands are hardly clean when it comes to honoring the First Amendment on college campuses. Forty-five years ago, after the U.S. mining of Haiphong harbor in the Vietnam War, I participated in student protests at Columbia that resulted in the shutdown of some facilities. It was atrociously arrogant behavior and something I’ve long regretted, even though I haven’t changed my mind much about the wisdom of that conflict.
I remember vividly, and uncomfortably, an incident in which a single spirited student who opposed the demonstrations tried to break through a line blocking a door. When he was stopped, he began to shout, “Fascists,” a description that seemed odd in the moment but which in fact contained a kernel of truth. It was one thing if protesters wanted to boycott classes to make a point, but their more aggressive tactics were utterly out of line.
Yet however misguided some conduct of that time — not only at Columbia but at many universities — its fundamental purpose was to seek change in national policy, not to dictate conformity of political opinion among fellow students and faculty. Moreover, the idea that students should be protected from “hate speech” and other opinions that offend them, and should actively suppress any such opinions in their midst, remained far outside the mainstream, and certainly never entered my mind.
Now, alas, such views are apparently rising toward majority status among educated young people. A recent Brookings Institution national survey of undergraduates found not only astonishing ignorance about the nature of the First Amendment but also ominous levels of approval for vocal and even physical attempts to silence opposing views.
UCLA professor John Villasenor, who conducted the survey, found that a plurality of students believe the First Amendment does not protect hate speech (of course it does) and a majority thinks a school is “legally required” to present opposing viewpoints to a speaker “known for making statements that many students consider to be offensive and hurtful” (there is no such requirement).
Far more disturbingly, a slight majority also said it was acceptable for a student
group to disrupt the speech of a controversial figure “by loudly and repeatedly shouting so that the audience cannot hear the speaker,” while nearly one-fifth said it was acceptable to use violence “to prevent the speaker from speaking.”
Villasenor is understandably alarmed by the results. Not only is freedom of expression on U.S. campuses “deeply imperiled” by such attitudes, he wrote in a Brookings commentary, but so is freedom in the broader society. After all, if “a large fraction of college students believe, however incorrectly, that offensive speech is unprotected by the First Amendment,” he explained, “that view will inform the decisions they make as they move into positions of increasing authority later in their careers.”
“Increasing authority” includes positions on the federal bench. And while judicial protection of free speech is currently quite robust in America, there is no reason to believe this happy state of affairs is set for all time.
But are students today actually less tolerant of dissent than previous generations or have undergraduates always harbored an authoritarian streak? Although Villasenor told me he is unaware of survey findings that would document attitudes toward hate speech over time, he did point to data compiled since 1967 on whether colleges should “ban extreme speakers from campus.” That data, from the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA, reveals, for example, that 43 percent of freshmen in 2015 said it was OK to ban speakers, nearly double the average percentage who agreed during the tumultuous 1960s and 1970s.
The percentage of freshmen in the survey willing to “prohibit racist/sexist speech on campus” — like “extreme speakers,” a notoriously expansive concept — has also risen since the question was first asked, to 71 percent in 2015.
Anyone who doubts the realworld consequences of such attitudes has failed to follow the surge in stories this year of campus speakers being shouted down and threatened. Even progressives have been targeted for alleged missteps, as when Evergreen State College professor Bret Weinstein objected to a “Day of Absence” in which whites were asked to stay off campus. Weinstein’s abuse at the hands of students is fairly well known, but he was by no means the only staff member to face intimidation. Emails obtained by Wall Street Journal writer Jillian Kay Melchior through a public-records request show other instances, including one involving Nancy Koppelman, an American studies and humanities professor.
Koppelman described being “followed by white students who yelled and cursed at me, accused me of not caring about black and brown bodies, and claimed that if I did care I would follow their orders.”
“The only thing they would accept was my obedience,” she wrote. The encounter so unnerved the professor, Melchior reports, “that she was left physically shaking. “
If the harrowing incident sounds reminiscent, in miniature, of scenes from China’s Cultural Revolution, that’s because it reflects a similar totalitarian mindset.
Villasensor believes colleges need “to do a better job fostering freedom of expression on their campuses,” while middle and high schools should focus more attention on the First Amendment and constitutional principles. Of course they should, but the likelihood of either occurring is not good.
I’d settle for seeing a greater willingness among progressives and journalists to denounce disruptive and violent left-wing fanatics like Antifa with the same fervor they direct (correctly) toward white nationalists and bigots. If the 20th century taught us anything, it’s that a totalitarian mindset, once triumphant, will exact a frightful toll in oppression no matter which side of the spectrum it calls home.