The idea that conservative students are uncomfortable on campus is nothing new. But, as political groups grow more insular, and the spectrum of acceptable beliefs appears to be ever shrinking, the problem is only accelerating.
According to a recent opinion study of 1,500 college students carried out by One Source, 55.1% of Republican students surveyed felt the need to hide their political views from friends. Only 15.5% of Democrats in the study had felt the same need.
But, secrecy from friends and classmates isn’t the only issue. Not by a long shot. Students are also concerned about physical safety, 37.5% of Republican students felt unsafe because of their political views.
College campuses have moved from beacons of free speech, and institutions oriented toward the spirit of open inquiry and discussion, into ideological cloisters. Students no longer wish to have their orthodoxy challenged, and divergent points are becoming increasingly unacceptable.
Not only do students face the usual threats to free speech like shout downs, and deplatforming, as described by Ronald Trowbridge in The American Spectator this morning, but now, they also face physical violence as a barrier to freedom of speech.
A major portion of this lack of openness to the very spirit of the liberal arts education comes from students themselves, who have been taught to equate mental and emotional discomfort brought about by ideas with actual physical harm. So much so, that sometimes they resort to physical violence in order to retaliate against the “violence” that they feel the ideas of students with whom they disagree.
Just this sort of action was on display recently at Tulane University where three students committed an act of arson by setting fire to the dorm room door of two students involved in Young Americans for Liberty, a campus libertarian organization. The students lit the door on fire specifically because of the young men’s political views. This is not the only recent example of actual physical violence being carried out on campus because of someone’s political views, another incident occurred at UC Berkeley where a student activist was punched in the face while recruiting new members for Turning Point USA, a conservative campus organization.
These incidents reveal an emerging pattern. As students begin to view real violence the same way as they view ideological harm, they are more willing to carry out aggressive acts that are motivated by politics. And, with that conflation becoming more and more widespread, it is unsurprising that such a high percentage of Republican students do not feel physically safe on campus.
The Monkey's Typewriter 