Study suggests violent student disruption of speakers would be a rarity

In the wake of UNC's decision not to allow white nationalist organizer Richard Spencer to rent space on campus on the basis of concerns about campus safety, a national survey found only 1 percent of students would consider disrupting speakers violently.

The survey, conducted during May and June by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, differs from a Brookings Institution survey on free speech on college campuses published last month.

According to the Brookings Institution survey, 19 percent of students approved of the statement “A student group opposed to the speaker uses violence to prevent the speaker from speaking.”

“Any number significantly above zero is concerning,” John Villasenor, the survey's author, wrote in the report. 

According to FIRE’s survey, 93 percent of students agree their schools should invite a variety of guest speakers, while 64 percent agree to changing their minds about an issue after listening to the guest speaker. Students identifying as Democrats were 19 percentage points more likely than their Republican peers to agree there are times a speaker should be disinvited.

FIRE’s survey shows that while a majority of students surveyed would support disinviting a speaker, the percentage of students that would actively participate in actions to disrupt an event drops drastically — 2 percent for making noise during the event and 1 percent for acting violently to disrupt the event.

Nico Perrino, a spokesperson for FIRE, said students grow weary of violent or aggressive actions to hinder events when presented with legal methods — such as petitions to university leadership — for disinviting speakers.

“I don’t think it’s strange that you see falloff when you get into the nitty-gritty of how the disinvitation will happen,” he said.

Given the low likelihood of event disruption as illustrated by the FIRE study, the report showed 87 percent of students are comfortable sharing ideas and opinions in their college classrooms.

It also found a large percentage of students will censor themselves for various reasons.

“They did find that 30 percent of students who said they self-censor in class do so because they think they might offend one of their peers,” Perrino said. “Outside of class, we found that almost a third of students self-censor because they feel like expressing their opinion might run afoul of 'political correctness.'"

The two studies had similar findings on hate speech, with the FIRE study finding 46 percent of students recognize hate speech as protected by the First Amendment and the Brookings Institution study finding 39 percent of participants holding that sentiment.

According to the American Civil Liberties Union, the First Amendment protects speech regardless of how offensive content is. Restrictions on speech by government institutions — such as public colleges and universities — amounts to government censorship, which violates the First Amendment.

Speech that falls under targeted harassment or threats or that creates a pervasively hostile environment for students is not protected by the First Amendment. 

Perrino said the U.S. Supreme Court will often vote unanimously or near-unanimously to protect hate speech under the First Amendment, referring to Matal v. Tam as an example. He said speech that incites violence, defames, harasses and defrauds is not protected.

In the case, The Slants — an Asian-American band — sued the United States Patent and Trademark Office after being denied a patent for the band's name on the basis of disparaging language. The court ruled that denying a trademark based on its disparaging connotations violates the free speech clause of the First Amendment.

Justice Samuel Alito delivered the opinion, siding with the dance-rock band.

“Speech that demeans on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, age, disability or any other similar ground is hateful," Alito wrote. "But the proudest boast of our free speech jurisprudence is that we protect the freedom to express ‘the thought we hate.’”

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