Cancel Culture Is Real in Higher Education. But Its Degree Does Vary Significantly

University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth Professor Lucas Mann recently argued in a piece for Slate that he has “never seen classrooms like mine in the pages of the Times” and notes that he sees students struggling with finding their voices and certainly not out of “some sense of political fear and self-silencing.” Mann’s experience as a professor at a regional school in southern Massachusetts and not an elite, national research university is one where his “students work really hard to make others feel welcome because they’re going through the same process. They are, by and large, far gentler with one another’s ideas than their own.” In short, Mann is suggesting that the press and national zeitgeist is focused on a few dozen elite schools which enroll a few hundred-thousand students and not the millions who are enrolled elsewhere in over 5,000 other colleges and universities.

Professor Mann is absolutely correct in drawing some real distinctions about the nation’s elite schools, but he is too quick to dismiss the threat of cancel culture as an elite phenomenon and focuses on his particular classrooms and not the trials and tribulations outside classroom settings. The sad reality is that cancel culture and the fear of speaking up runs rampant on our college campuses, and viewpoint diversity is no longer considered a sacred, core value in higher education—albeit to different degrees across varied institutions of higher education. Students who attend the nation’s elite schools—those that purportedly thrive in the world of research, innovation and discovery—are actually more likely to try to cancel speech than their peers who attend lower-ranked educational institutions.

New data from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), RealClearEducation, and College Pulse provide empirical insight into which schools are likely to try to shut down speech. The survey captures the voices of over 37,000 students at 159 colleges and paints a picture of college life in which shouting down speakers, limiting others from hearing diverse viewpoints, and even the use of violence to prevent speech are viewed as acceptable by many students.

Nationally, two-thirds of students believe there are cases where shouting down a speaker can be justified. At the top 20 colleges and universities ranked according to US News, which includes schools like Yale and Middlebury, close to three-quarters (72 percent) of students say there are cases in which trying to disrupt a speaker is justifiable. At schools ranked below 100, such as Texas Tech, the University of Central Florida, and regional schools like Professor Mann’s, the number drops to 62 percent.

When asked about the acceptability of blocking one’s peers from attending a campus presentation, 40 percent of students nationally state that there are cases where stopping their classmates from hearing someone else’s views can be justified. In comparison, 50 percent of students at the top 20 schools think such behavior is justifiable. The numbers drop from there: 41 percent of those attending schools ranked 41–75, such as Penn State and Syracuse University, believe blocking peers from hearing a speaker is acceptable. Just over a third (35 percent) of students enrolled in schools ranked below 100—schools which include New Mexico State and Georgia State—feel there are cases where blocking their peers is acceptable.

Finally, almost a quarter (23 percent) of students nationwide believe violent acts could be justifiable to prevent speech. This alarmingly high figure is even higher at the nation’s elite colleges. Thirty percent of students at the top 20 colleges and universities think there are cases where violence is acceptable. The number drops notably for schools ranked below 100, which includes the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Central Florida—where only 20 percent accept violence as a means to stop speech, but the difference here is not huge between the elite and non-elite.

The data are clear: The more elite the school, the more likely that its students are willing to silence speech. For elite, academically minded schools, this is not only a complete repudiation of their very mission and reason for existence, it is also deeply saddening to watch as a professor. The impulse to cancel in the name of woke, identity-laden, progressive values is preventing students from growing and learning how to connect with others in a world of real and valid differences. But lower-ranked, regional schools are not perfect either; significant numbers at these institutions are still open to shutting down speech even if they are not “ivy tower” schools. Far too many students will leave these schools’ halls thinking that shouting down ideas is acceptable and effective, and that poses a real danger to higher education and society more generally.

By coddling students and allowing woke administrators to set the agenda, schools are depriving students of a genuine educational experience—one that should be both joyous and, at times, uncomfortable; one filled with ample speech, debate, and discourse.

Samuel J. Abrams is a professor of politics at Sarah Lawrence College and a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute