Don’t blame millennials for free speech crisis on college campuses

Two months ago, I wrote a piece about the dangerous trend facing higher education in America: the violent pushback against free speech on college campuses. Since then, we’ve seen an increase in “disinvitations” and the violent demonstrations that greet scholars such as Charles Murray and Heather Mac Donald, when they visit elite colleges. Most recently, Ann Coulter’s UC Berkeley speech was cancelled because the school could not provide an adequate venue or sufficient police protection.

The situation on college campuses has deteriorated to the point that one of the largest publicly funded institutions cannot provide sufficient security to protect Ann Coulter’s constitutional right to free speech. They have failed in their fundamental mission to provide a learning environment where a diverse array of views can be aired and debated freely, without fear of retaliation.

Coulter: Colleges like Berkeley want to “squelch conservative speech” https://t.co/VWaNmh6wQj pic.twitter.com/kqROoEhkSw

— The Hill (@thehill) April 27, 2017

{mosads}Another campus incident that hit close to home for my organization, The Fund for American Studies (TFAS), was when our Senior Scholar James Otteson faced a faculty uprising at Wake Forest University. This uproar occurred because members of the faculty discovered Professor Otteson accepted a grant from the Charles Koch Foundation for his work at Wake Forest. A faculty committee went so far as to recommend that Professor Otteson’s academic freedom be severely curtailed and that Wake Forest return the grant.

It might be easy to label “millennials” as the problem, but that’s not only naïve, it’s completely wrong. Popular culture has often characterized this generation as detached and indifferent; far more knowledgeable about the Kardashians than the latest sweeping Supreme Court decision.

The fact is millennials overwhelmingly support free speech. TFAS recently partnered with WPA Intelligence to conduct a national survey of American attitudes toward freedom. We found that a vast 92 percent of millennials support free of speech. The same survey also found that 93 percent of them support freedom of religion.

So, the images we see in the media of protesters on college campuses and young Americans being violent and disruptive, are really a small minority among college students. They may be vocal and violent, but they’re a minority nonetheless.

Dem lawmaker accuses GOP of trying to stifle free speech by eliminating net neutrality https://t.co/SGCFHye6fK pic.twitter.com/V4ujnh6akJ

— The Hill (@thehill) May 3, 2017

This doesn’t mean that millennials aren’t ideologically liberal or that they reject socialism and other political ideologies that lead to widespread curtailing of freedoms. Quite the contrary is true if polls are accurate. There is still much work to be done to help these young people make the connection between a broader appreciation for freedom and how specific policies can diminish or permanently erode our freedom, and the American system of government.

However, it’s important to recognize that the condemnation of growing intolerance for the exchange of ideas on college campuses is becoming bipartisan. Even Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, who support restrictions on the political speech of people in business, have slammed the Berkeley protests.

Berkeley students who invited Ann Coulter to speak sue university https://t.co/Tkx4Y6T0fz pic.twitter.com/Y5EX9x4amd

— The Hill (@thehill) April 25, 2017

Likewise, the American Civil Liberties Union’s statement was emphatic in denouncing the cancellation of Coulter’s speech: “The unacceptable threats of violence that have led to the ‘hecklers’ veto’ of Ann Coulter’s speech at Berkeley are inconsistent with free speech principles that protect us all from government overreach.”

While the media continually shines the spotlight on violent activists attacking one of our most precious rights, there’s an overwhelming consensus from left to right, young and old, that these freedoms must be protected.  Despite the caricatures we often see online and on television, millennials are not a lost generation — quite the opposite.

The survey results offer hope in a time of unrest. Campus administrators, staff and faculty members need to realize what the large majority of their students — and perhaps their tuition-paying parents — understand and believe. Such recognition on their part should strengthen their resolve to keep the college campus free to conduct meaningful dialogue based on mutual respect.

Roger Ream is president of The Fund for American Studies, a nonprofit, non-partisan educational enterprise which develops leaders for a free society and is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.