Despite being one of the nation’s papers of record, The New York Times’ reporting and editorials have been lacking in viewpoint diversity for quite a while now. So when the paper’s editorial board commissioned a survey and published a strong piece finally admitting that expression and discourse is a problem in the nation, it was certainly a positive step: Even some very liberal writers recognize that cancel culture and so much self-censorship need to stop and are a real threat to American progress. The editorial board is absolutely correct in asserting that “Free speech demands a greater willingness to engage with ideas we dislike and greater self-restraint in the face of words that challenge and even unsettle us,” and I am hopeful that such a statement will resonate with the paper’s liberal readership.

I could not agree more with the editors who wrote that “However you define cancel culture, Americans know it exists and feel its burden.” Even so, they overlooked a troubling trend in the data that is worth exploring in more detail. Specifically, in its poll of over 1,500 US residents over age 18, it is very clear that not only is cancel culture a nationwide problem, it is not impacting all Americans equally. Younger Americans report they are more likely to censor themselves compared to older Americans and they may be less open to supporting free speech.

The survey
asked respondents to think about “all the interactions you have with
your family, friends, co-workers and other members of your community” and then
share how free they felt to express their views “without fear of retaliation,
censorship or punishment.” The results are sobering.

With respect to family — those with whom Americans should
feel the closest — only 61 percent of younger Americans (ages 18–34) say that
they feel completely free to share their views. In contrast, this figure is
much lower than the 80 percent of 35–49-year-olds who feel the same way or the
76 percent of their 50–64-year-old parents who feel more comfortable expressing
their thoughts. This deeply problematic statistic means that four in 10 young
Americans report that they self-censor.

As for members of the local community, including those you
meet at places of religious worship, clubs, or organizations, fewer Americans
are willing to speak freely with such people. Less than three in 10 (29
percent) of younger Americans report that they feel genuinely free to share
their views with those they interact with in these places. For older cohorts,
the numbers are higher but still too low: 48 percent of those 65 and older and
49 percent of those ages 35–49 say they are willing to share their true beliefs
in these spaces.

Americans do appear to be more willing to share their
uncensored views with their friends, but social sorting makes these
relationships appreciably different from engagement in one’s community where
politics plays out publicly.

The survey also asked if respondents “ever held [their]
tongue, that is, not spoken freely, over the last year because you were
concerned about retaliation, or harsh criticism.” The majority (61 percent) of
younger Americans report that they have self-censored, while the figure is much
lower for their grandparents: Only 41 percent of those 65 and older report
doing the same. Younger Americans are clearly worried about retaliation for
their words. Over two-thirds (67 percent) of young Americans who say they’ve
self-silenced in the past year report keeping silent for fear of retaliation,
compared to just 46 percent of those over 65. An additional 79 percent of those
under age 35 kept quiet for fear of being harshly criticized, compared to 55
percent of those over 65 years old. These figures reveal real differences by
age that were glossed over by the editorial board.

One piece of good news from the data is that majorities of all age cohorts believe that American democracy and society is “built upon the free, open and safe exchange of ideas no matter how different they are [and that] We should encourage all speech so long as it is done in a way that doesn’t threaten others.” But younger Americans were less supportive of this idea than older Americans were. Sixty-one percent of those under 35 years of age agreed with this statement, lower than the 72 percent of their parents (50–64-year-olds) and 68 percent of their grandparents (65 and older) who feel the same way.

These generational differences are real and should not be
overlooked. We must understand and address why younger Americans are more
likely to self-censor and must work to make sure that up-and-coming cohorts are
taught to embrace values of difference and discourse. As younger Americans age
and become more influential, our nation will be far less civically healthy and less
likely to innovate if this climate of fear and censorship persists.

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

The post The New York Times is right that America has a free speech problem. But they missed a big part of the story. appeared first on American Enterprise Institute – AEI.