A provocative argument asserting that today’s Ivy League students are collectively both more woke and concurrently more silent and passive on political issues compared to students at religious colleges and universities has been making rounds on social media and is in need of correction. Originally presented in The Wall Street Journal, R.R. Reno argues that students are more balanced intellectually and dispositionally when they come from small colleges that tend to be religiously oriented like Hillsdale, or “quirky small Catholic colleges such as Thomas Aquinas College, Wyoming Catholic College and the University of Dallas.”

Reno believes that at these smaller and often religious schools, students “haven’t been deformed by the toxic political correctness that leaders of elite universities have allowed to become dominant.” While it is certainly true that students at small liberal arts colleges are generally more liberal than their university counterparts, and that schools in some regions are more politically balanced than others, these pronouncements about elite schools are far too extreme.

Data from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) reveal a more nuanced picture of college students today, and the differences between elite schools and religiously leaning schools are not nearly as wide as many believe. The new FIRE survey about free speech on college campuses captures the voices of over 37,000 students at 159 colleges and universities across the country — and finds that while many students reject cancel culture, some students thrive on shouting down others.

More specifically, the FIRE data reveal that close to three-quarters (72 percent) of students at elite schools — defined here as the top 20 colleges and universities ranked according to US News, including schools like Yale and Middlebury — say there are cases in which trying to disrupt a speaker is justifiable. At schools ranked below 100, such as Texas Tech and the University of Central Florida, the number drops to 62 percent.

Looking at the almost 3,000
students in the FIRE sample who are enrolled in religious schools — schools ranging from Hillsdale to DePaul to
St Louis University — the data show that
their views on speech are a bit better than those of students at elite schools,
but not by a landslide. The majority (62 percent) of students in religious
schools argue that there are cases where shouting down a speaker is justifiable
compared to 67 percent of those at secular schools.

Regarding the
acceptability of blocking one’s peers from attending a campus presentation, 40
percent of students overall state that there are cases where such behavior can
be justified. In comparison, 50 percent of students at the top 20 schools think
that stopping their classmates from hearing someone else’s views is acceptable.
The numbers drop from there: Just over a third (35 percent) of students enrolled
in schools ranked below 100 feel there are cases where blocking their peers is
acceptable. At religious schools, 39 percent of students state that they can
find a reason to block their peers from hearing a campus speaker, compared to
42 percent of students at secular schools. There are differences here among the
elite and religious schools, again, but they are not huge.

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 use of violence to prevent someone
from speaking is acceptable. The number drops notably among students at schools
ranked below 100, where only 20 percent accept violence as a means to stop
speech. As for religious schools, approximately 1 in 5 (21 percent) can find
cases where they believe that it is acceptable, but this is only three points
lower than those in secular schools (24 percent).

Pulling these trends together,
it is true that the more elite the school, the more likely that its students
are willing to silence speech. The impulse to cancel in the name of woke,
identity-laden, progressive values is indeed preventing students from learning
how to connect with others in a world of real and valid differences.

But problems with speech are
not unique to elite schools. Sadly, the data show that speech is under threat at
schools across the country, and that religiously oriented schools are
not that much better on issues related to expression than the rest of the
nation’s students. While fewer students at religious schools are clamoring to
shut down the views of others, this is not by significant orders of magnitude
compared to elite schools whatsoever. Thus, it would be wise to evaluate students
as individuals when it comes to their views and behaviors toward speech, rather
than making prejudiced, blanket judgments about them based exclusively on where
they opt to attend college.

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

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