The Myth of "Self-Censorship"

"Ideological diversity matters...until you disagree with me."

This article is part two of a series on Free Speech and Self-Censorship on College Campuses. Part One, which covers partisan free speech restrictions at the University of Virginia, can be found here. 

One month and one day ago, the New York Times radically shifted the climate at the University of Virginia. The paper published an Op-Ed by Senior Emma Camp, who alleged a culture of “strict ideological conformity” on campus. She claimed conservatives are being silenced by their more liberal peers. UVA students were taken aback by her failure to even mention UVA’s horrific record of protecting the voices of progressive activists. However, her critique was not levied at the administration, but at the student body itself. 

She, like many prominent conservatives, argued that a liberal student body shames right-leaning students into silence. After her piece dropped, our student newspaper published multiple articles analyzing (and criticizing) her claims. Later that month, it was announced Mike Pence would be visiting our campus as part of a lecture series; this ignited even more debate about the role of free speech in our lives. UVA President Jim Ryan hosted an event titled “What Should We Do About Free Speech at UVA?” 

Each of the speakers took it for granted that conservative self-censorship abounds at UVA and colleges across the country. Had they looked at the evidence, they may have come to a very different conclusion. 

Facts Don’t Care About Your Feelings

Fears of conservative oppression are largely overblown. In 2020 the Higher Education Research Institute found that over 80% of students from all ideological groups believe “their institutions encourage them to have a voice and share ideas openly.” That isn’t to say all students feel their rights are protected. While it is true that conservatives report feeling more pressure to stay quiet than their peers, the Knight Foundation released a survey earlier this year that found only half of Black students believe the first amendment protects people like [them].” Over 90% of white students feel protected. 

A group of conservative students at UVA afraid to share their political opinions.

This isn’t surprising when you consider how institutions frequently surveil students of color while ignoring the speech of white conservatives. At UVA, progressive activists are policed due to their speech. Just last week, progressive student leaders were sent hate mail and death threats after expressing their opposition to Mike Pence speaking on campus. 

The great irony here is that national attention is more focused on the students who don’t want to speak than condemning dangerous backlash itself, when it is the fear of backlash that prevents students from speaking out! Conservative silence is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you want to promote a culture of people unafraid to speak their mind, reward and defend those who actually speak their mind! 

Self-censorship isn’t a problem unique to universities. While a survey of over 37,000 students found that roughly 20% of students “often” self-censor, a  2020 study from the University of Washington St. Louis found that 40% of Americans regularly self-censor – a rate double that of universities. Self-censorship, researchers found, isn’t caused by large-scale changes in the American political landscape. Rather, people self-censor when they fear their opinions may drive away their friends or neighbors. But this phenomenon isn’t limited to Republicans; a liberal in a conservative town is just as likely to self-censor as a conservative in a liberal environment. 

Moreover, colleges aren’t as liberal as your uncle seems to think. While there are more liberals than conservatives on campus, the majority of college students are moderates. Even though liberal professors outnumber conservative ones, this is largely due to self-selection. It’s just like how conservatives outnumber liberals in the financial sector — no need for a national emergency. Students aren’t sponges — data shows “scant evidence” that the liberal professoriate influences student beliefs or student outcomes. In one study, researchers at Xavier University and Hamilton College tracked how over 6,000 students’ beliefs changed over their time at college. They found “no evidence that faculty ideology…has an impact on student political ideology.” In fact, students’ political opinions are shaped far more by their (moderate) roommates than their professors.  

The argument that conservative students uniquely self-censor lacks merit. Self-censorship does occur, but it happens just like it does across the country. People change what they say depending on their audience. This isn’t a rights violation — it’s a basic fact of life. It isn’t appropriate to give your “hot take” on the Civil Rights Act in an 8AM Bio Lab. Self-censorship isn’t a collegiate problem, and it isn’t a strictly partisan one. 

Intellectual Diversity or Harmful Hypocrisy? 

Yet, Republican rage porn bemoans the lack of intellectual tolerance on campuses across the country. The facts and context behind this idea notwithstanding, there is a kernel of truth here. Universities should promote diversity along all axes, including intellectual diversity. Fortunately, conservative students can join debate clubs, volunteer for political campaigns, and protest just like left-leaning students do. 

However, many commentators take issue with how conservative students feel in the classroom. 

In-class discussions on polarizing topics rarely go as well as stock photos might suggest.

They treat education as a combative endeavor. Just as iron sharpens iron, intellectual debate between political opponents forges stronger students. This process cannot occur when conservatives conform to majority opinions due to fears of backlash. There can be no debate if one side stays silent. 

But treating learning like a debate presupposes an equality between both sides; it implies arguments made by teacher and student are equally valid. In no K-12 setting do we think this is true. This isn’t to say that college students, adults in their own right, should never disagree with a professor or their peers. Rather, students coming to discussion sections armed to the teeth with rebuttals often aren’t interested in learning; they want to be proven right. 

The idea that everything — even lived experience — is up for debate abstracts away from the lives of students. People appear as points on a scatterplot when you look down on them from an ivory tower. Some students confuse the scatterplot for real life. 

This false equivalence – “my opinion is as valid as yours regardless of how much I actually know about the subject” – embedded in notions of “intellectual diversity” often serves to protect offensive, bigoted comments — comments that isolate and exclude marginalized students from the broader university community. 

During my first week on campus, one of my hallmates told me that laziness is the root cause of hunger, because “rice and beans are cheap.” UVA Sociology Professor Milton Vickerman, a Black man, has had a student ask if they could write a term paper on how “few Blacks swim” because “they lack the organ that allows them to float.”  

Is this bigotry or is this intellectual diversity? 

Students have an obligation to condemn the hate underpinning violent ideologies.

Students should respond swiftly and harshly to such ideas. A student body that fails to condemn bigotry not only fails their peers; they are unprepared for the moral challenges of adult life. Claiming that students have a “right” to express their views in class without rebuke tacitly promotes uninformed prejudice – the very thing a university education is meant to prevent. 

And this is the key point: “without rebuke.” In no way do I, nor anyone else for that matter, believe that people speaking in good faith should be ostracized. But disagreement is not alienation, and students reacting harshly to seemingly racist positions is not the same thing as students rejecting any and all conservatism.

Too often complaints of “self-censorship” boil down to “my classmates disagree with me, and I don’t like it.” Disagreement – particularly with regard to controversial issues – is uncomfortable. It is hard to be the minority opinion. But education, and the process of exposing oneself to radically new perspectives and ideas, should be uncomfortable! Students who equate “being uncomfortable” with “being silenced” misunderstand why free speech matters. They do not want discussion – they want a pulpit. To them I say: Believing learning comes through debate yet complaining when the opposition speaks is mere hypocrisy.