30% of college students say violence acceptable way to stop speakers on campuses, survey finds
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression survey finds 30% of students find violence acceptable to stop speakers, one year after Charlie Kirk's assassination.
TL;DR
- 30% of college students nationwide believe using violence is an acceptable way to stop a controversial speaker.
- 3% of students find it always acceptable, 12% sometimes acceptable, and 16% rarely acceptable.
- This percentage is down from last year (34%) but up 10 points from four years ago.
- 70% of students believe violence is never acceptable to oppose a speaker.
- 69% of students believe shouting down a speaker is acceptable, down three points from last year but up seven points from four years ago.
- The data comes a year after Charlie Kirk's assassination during a campus event.
- Acceptance of violence among liberal and conservative students is now roughly equal, a change from previous years where liberal students were more accepting.
- The top five schools for free speech in 2027 were the University of Chicago, Claremont McKenna College, the Georgia Institute of Technology, Michigan Technological University, and Vanderbilt University.
- The survey included 62,997 undergraduate students from 262 colleges and universities.