90 percent of undergraduate students think that “words can be violence” at least “somewhat,” according to a recent Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression survey.
The poll also showed increasing ideological gaps between left-leaning and right-leaning students, notes The College Fix:
When respondents were asked how much the statement “words can be violence” describes their thoughts, 47 percent answered with “completely” or “mostly.” Twenty-eight percent said it describes their thoughts “somewhat,” and 15 percent said “slightly.”
Additionally, around 59 percent of students said “silence is violence” describes their views at least “somewhat,” though only 28 percent said it describes their thoughts “completely” or “mostly.”
“When people start thinking that words can be violence, violence becomes an acceptable response to words,” FIRE Chief Research Advisor Sean Stevens said.“Even after the murder of Charlie Kirk at a speaking event, college students think that someone’s words can be a threat. This is antithetical to a free and open society, where words are the best alternative to political violence.”
The poll also showed that moderate and conservative students have grown less supportive of disruptive or violent tactics to stop campus speakers, while liberal students’ support for those tactics has stayed the same or risen slightly compared to the spring.
At the same time, moderate and conservative students have become more open to allowing controversial speakers, while liberal students have maintained or increased their opposition to those speakers.
In 2022, conservative pundit Ann Coulter tried to give a speech at a college she graduated from — Cornell University — but had to give up after continual disruptions by protesters that prevented the audience from hearing what she had to say. A white male in a beanie and hoodie shouted, “we don’t want you to be here, your words are violence. … They are threats, you cannot be speaking here. We don’t want your ideas here! Leave! Leave! Your words are violence! Your words are violence!” “The event lasted just a little more than 30 minutes, of which Coulter spoke for less than 7,” reported the Cornell Review.
Colleges and the media have glaring double standards about what speech they consider protected. Left-wing students can advocate violence or ethnic cleansing, at least if their speech is not deemed to be a “true threat.” But peaceful non-leftist speech that offends black people is sometimes treated as totally unprotected by the media, even when it is not threatening at all — such as a flyer saying “It’s OK To Be White,” or a flyer with a confederate flag on it, which led to FBI investigations of such obviously protected speech, even though the Supreme Court has found far worse speech to be protected by the First Amendment. A college suspended a conservative for months after he criticized the use of race as a factor in selecting Supreme Court justices, even though courts have ruled that the First Amendment protects harsh criticism of affirmative action. Obnoxious white students who aren’t left-wing have been expelled for approving of violence against black people, even when such speech is off campus, was protected by the First Amendment according to legal experts, and did not contain threats.
