One Year After Disruption Of Judge Duncan's Speech, 54% Of Stanford Students Support Cancelling Conservative Speakers

Jonathan Turley (George Washington; Google Scholar), Survey: A Majority of Stanford Students Support Cancelling Conservative Speakers a Year After Duncan Controversy:

A year ago, Stanford University was embroiled in controversy after federal appellate Judge Kyle Duncan was shouted down by law students. Now a survey by FIRE has found that a majority of students believe that Duncan should have been cancelled.  Seventy-five percent believe that it is appropriate to shout down speakers. ...

FIRE released The Judge Duncan Shoutdown: What Stanford Students Think, including 54% of Stanford students said that Judge Duncan’s visit should have been canceled by the administration.

Another 36% stated that using physical violence to shutdown a campus speaker is “always,” “sometimes,” or “rarely” acceptable.

75% said the same about shouting down a speaker to prevent them from speaking.

Not surprising, only six percent of conservative students now feel comfortable disagreeing with professors. ...

At Stanford, law students received a mixed message in the law school denouncing the silencing of opposing views but refusing to hold any students or groups accountable.

These schools are enablers of the anti-free speech movement and the rising of a generation of speech phobics. As I discuss in my forthcoming book, The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage, academics and administrators continue to foster an environment of orthodoxy and viewpoint intolerance in higher education. This survey vividly demonstrates how schools like Stanford mouth commitments to free speech while sending a completely different message in the actual actions that it takes in the face of anti-free speech campaigns.

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