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The report provides strong confirmation that conservatives face a hostile campus.

Among students who self-identify as liberals, some 10 percent said they hear disrespectful, inappropriate, or offensive comments about foreign students at least several times a semester, 14 percent said they hear disparaging comments about Muslims, 20 percent said they hear such comments about African Americans, 20 percent said they hear such comments about Christians, 21 percent said they hear such comments about LGBTQ individuals, and 57 percent said they hear such comments about conservatives. Among moderates, 68 percent said that they hear disrespectful, inappropriate, or offensive comments about conservatives at least several times a semester.

Out conservatives may face social isolation. Roughly 92 percent of conservatives said they would be friends with a liberal, and just 3 percent said that they would not have a liberal friend. Among liberals, however, almost a quarter said they would not have a conservative friend. Would UNC be a better place without conservatives? About 22 percent of liberals said yes. Would it be a better place without liberals? Almost 15 percent of conservatives thought so.

Lee C. Bollinger: Free speech on campus is doing just fine, thank you

Self-identified conservative students do in fact face distinct challenges related to viewpoint expression at UNC, the authors conclude. They urge a conversation about how the campus can become more accepting of conservative students as well as more willing to hear and engage with conservative ideas. After all, they ask, who would dispute that universities should be places where each idea is considered on its own terms, and not prejudged? Where sincerely held conclusions can be offered up for vigorous and civil contestation? Where students are assumed to be arguing in good faith and where they feel valued and respected, even should they turn out to be wrong?

As important, the authors correctly emphasize that the wrong way to interpret our report would be to see it as pitting liberals against conservatives, not only because many liberals and moderates harbor similar anxieties about sharing earnest views, but also because even though political hostility emerges disproportionately from the political left at UNC, that hostility comes from a minority, not a majority, of liberals. Tolerant students belong to a cross-ideological majority. While divided in their politics, both are ill-served by the minority faction of intolerant censors.

Self-censorship is among several significant reasons to believe that free speech remains under threat on American campuses, harming undergraduate education. I try to avoid talk of crisis, because I believe that free speech is perpetually threatened and requires constant vigilance to sustain. But however we label the status quo, Americas professors ought to be aware of these problems.

Originally posted here:
Evidence That Conservative Students Really Do Self-Censor - The Atlantic