BY JOHN K. WILSON
Heterodox Academy has issued a new survey of college students that is being touted as evidence that students fear controversial issues. But there are some critical questions that need to be asked.about it.
The survey repeatedly asked the following style of question (about politics, race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, the 2020 elections, and Black Lives Matters): “Think about discussing a controversial issue about POLITICS in a class this semester. How comfortable or reluctant would you feel about speaking up and giving your views on this topic?”
One problem with this kind of survey is that it is highly speculative. “How reluctant would you feel” is not a report about a student’s personal experiences in the classroom. If this survey had asked students about their classroom experiences and whether they ever actually felt reluctant to speak in their classes, these responses probably would have been much lower.
The speculative aspect of the survey also may have generated higher responses because all students feel reluctant to discuss controversial issues in some of their classes because it’s not appropriate. It’s notable that the field of study with the highest reluctance in nearly every category was mathematics/statistics. A math student might feel reluctant to discuss race, religion, and politics in their classes because controversial issues are rarely raised in math classes. In fact, it’s probably a good thing if students feel reluctant to discuss controversial religious issues in their calculus class because they should be discussing math. If a student was taking no classes in which controversial religious issues were normally discussed, they might respond that they were reluctant to discuss that topic. And it’s quite likely that if Republicans major more often in pre-professional fields than Democrats, then Republicans may be more likely than Democrats to take classes where controversial topics in general are discouraged from being discussed.
This kind of question also can create a bias in responses toward higher reports of reluctance to speak. If a student is taking five classes in fall 2020, which class are they supposed to provide an answer for? If a student feels perfectly free to discuss controversial issues in four of their classes, but one time in one class they felt somewhat reluctant to discuss sexual orientation issues, I suspect they might focus on that, and they will be counted as one of the “censored” 60% of students even though the overall experience of their classes has been very free.
A speculative survey like this generates a wide range of interpretations from the indifferent students who are paid to take it. Some students take the question literally, and respond based on whether any class they’re taking would feel weird to have a controversial discussion on each topic. Some students just imagine if any class they might take would make them feel that way. And some students might respond in ideological ways: if they are a Republican and they’ve heard that Republicans feel silenced on campus, they might answer a survey affirming reluctance even if they personally haven’t experienced that in a class because their classes didn’t raise these issues. It’s simply not possible to know what students understand this speculative question to mean and what the interpretation of their responses can measure.
The survey also asked, “The climate on my campus prevents some people from saying things they believe because others might find them offensive.” It found that 61.9% strongly agree or somewhat agree. The only thing surprising about this number is that it’s so low. This question is also speculative because it asks for respondents to imagine what might happen in the minds of all other people on campus. Once again, students are not asked about their personal experience. Clearly, on every campus (for the entire history of higher education) you can find “some” people (two? three?) who do not always say what they believe “because others might find them offensive.” This happens all the time. If a campus has 50,000 students, and “some” believe that black people are inherently inferior, is it really a free speech crisis if the campus climate makes three racists reluctant to publicly say racist ideas? It’s only a problem if institutional rules punish speech or if the campus climate silences reasonable debate, but surveys like this provide no answers about the circumstances of when and why people feel silenced.
Another question in the survey is, “Regardless of viewpoint, everyone is treated as valued contributors to conversations.” The relativist notion that all views must be regarded as valuable is fundamentally wrong. To be specific, stupid ideas are not the equal of smart ideas. Holocaust deniers do not add a valuable component to the discussion of Nazi Germany. Astrologists do not add value to the discussion of astronomy. Not all ideas are equally valuable. The idea of free speech is to allow every viewpoint to be expressed, not for every viewpoint to be treated as valuable.
One of the worst aspects of the outcry about “cancel culture” is that those who denounce it are creating a false picture of victimization that itself has a greater chilling effect than the actual “cancel culture.” Consider this extraordinary fact from the survey: of the 60% of students speculating that they might feel silenced in classes, most worried about being criticized by other students (a problem that cannot easily be solved unless you silence those other students). But 23.3% of them (14% of all students) were worried that “someone would file a complaint claiming my views violated a campus harassment policy.”
Let’s bring a dose of reality here: Off the top of my head, I can’t think of a single example where a student was ever punished by a college for a view they expressed in a class. I’m sure it’s happened somewhere, but this is an extraordinarily rare thing. Yes, college students on rare occasions have been wrongly punished for their expressions, but it almost always stems from their public utterances. Students simply don’t get punished by college administrators for what they say in class. Yet based on this survey, millions of college students think this is going to happen to them.
According to the report, “In general, students were most reluctant to discuss controversial topics when they were the majority demographic for the issue under discussion.” This is not true. In fact, minority demographics on campus were usually the most reluctant to speak about an issue (atheists and agnostics about religion, men about gender, and Republicans/Libertarians about politics). But the idea of minorities always oppressing and silencing the majority is a firmly held belief by some.
The delusion of persecution is a dangerous thing, as Donald Trump and his supporters showed us in promoting the lie that the 2020 election was stolen. When people are encouraged by cable news to see their own persecution everywhere, they tend to agree when you survey them about it, whether you are asking Republicans about the stolen election (76% of whom believe there was widespread voter fraud) or about a climate of silencing on college campuses. But it doesn’t mean the persecution is real. The concern about campus climate is legitimate and often worrisome and difficult to measure. But we shouldn’t imagine that surveys always tell us what the truth is.
I’m usually a nitpicker about language and semantics and would, in that mode, agree with my friend John K. Wilson that the wording of these survey questions is not ideal.
However, as the old saying goes, for me, the wording of most of the items cited is “close enough for government work.” 🙂 Even though “close only counts in the game of horseshoes and hand grenades,” I still think that asking students to PREDICT their behavior in class gives us SOME potentially valuable information, just as inquiring about whether they had ever EXPERIENCED reluctance to share their views can enhance our understanding of what is taking place.
Furthermore, I’m not sure that we can infer that one of the survey items “asks for respondents to imagine what might happen in the minds of all other people on campus.” To me, that specific question is open enough that it could also include a report on actual incidents in which Free Speech was delimited — or where trigger warnings, taboo subjects, and the prevailing party line are discussed in class or etched in stone on the course syllabus. Finally, campus codes that disallow “hate speech” (which is NOT a legal term of art at all. The Supremes have ruled on it at least three times) without specifying WHICH words or ideas are VERBOTEN leave students and faculty in a netherworld where they may just practice self-censorship just in case someone takes offense to their unintended “micro-aggressions.” In fact *I* now practice such self-censorship — even in the absence of clear, written guidelines about what is “P.C.” and what is not. THAT is a stifling atmosphere and I could cite chapter and verse on that score.
https://www.academia.edu/31680392/Self_Censorship_of_College_Faculty
A questionnaire is not necessarily the place to expect people to provide concrete evidence about their PERCEPTIONS (i.e., about the prevailing MOOD on campus). The fault therefore does not lie in the allegedly
poorly worded questions, but in the uses (and misuses) that the results are put to.
There’s an element of sleight-of-hand to this blogpost. In saying that “Students simply don’t get punished by college administrators for what they say in class,” Prof. Wilson introduces a qualification that enables him to make the problem disappear. Students do not, for the most part, fear being punished by the Dean of the College. They do, however, fear being down-graded by their professors. They also fear being ostracized, or worse, by their peers outside the classroom, a particular problem on residential campuses. And—correctly—knowing that their institution will not defend them if they do take an unpopular position, they routinely self-censor. That is not at all hard to believe, especially bearing in mind how often their professors report doing exactly the same thing.
Prof. Wilson may find fault with this particular survey instrument, and for all I know he may be correct to do so. But there is hardly a poll asking the same questions in the past ten or fifteen years that has not yielded similar if not identical results, on both sides of the Atlantic. To insist that they are *all* statistically flawed is implausible; to maintain that they reveal nothing more than the individual and collective paranoia of their respondents smacks of gaslighting.
The survey did ask about students fear being criticized by peers most of all, and that some fear getting a worse grade, and these are believable fears. But as you point out, being punished by the dean for classroom comments is not what happens on campuses. Yet students report widespread fear of this happening, which raises the likelihood that students are self-censoring based on irrational fears. If that’s the case, then to fight against self-censorship, we need to acknowledge and address the real fears and also persuade students not to fall victim to irrational fears.
Re.: “being punished by the dean for classroom comments is not what happens on campuses.” Maybe STUDENTS are not apprehensive about that eventuality but the REAL fear for readers of ACADEME BLOG should be that PROFESSORS (especially adjuncts) and STAFF MEMBERS will be punished for benign comments or perfectly appropriate actions that are misconstrued as “MICRO-aggressions” (i.e., the case delineated in the link below) or based on prejudice (i.e., the recent Smith case in which a Black student was asked to leave an area that was off-limits FOR ALL STUDENTS at that time)..
Read all about my case here:
https://www.academia.edu/23593134/A_Leftist_Critique_of_Political_Correctness_Gone_Amok_Revised_and_Updated
I appreciate Humanities professor’s point, and it reminds me that we seem to have a split over who deserves the blame for our current crisis: those right-wingers outside the academy (those who would deny scientific findings, etc), or those left-wingers (inside or outside the academy) who influence the structure and curriculum of universities, and steer faculty and student development. Both extremes can be anti-empiricist and authoritarian. Both extremes naively or arrogantly presume that political goals should overrule academic findings. Both extremes want college students to turn out on their side politically. We in the AAUP who do not believe we are on one or the other side of this divide should be willing to look closely at any “delusions of persecution” that might be held by left-wingers and right-wingers, and by people inside the university and people outside the university. If we won’t do this, it could result in more AAUP members moving over to Heterodox Academy–when, ideally, in my view, AAUP would work in concert, not in competition, with Heterodox Academy.
As a lifelong student of semantics and rhetoric, I am always fascinated by how people can cloak and couch their biases (political and otherwise) in language, while attempting to appear even-handed. For instance, “those right-wingers outside the academy (those who would deny scientific findings, etc)” — a charge of IGNORANCE or even STUPIDITY vs. ” those left-wingers (inside or outside the academy) who influence the structure and curriculum of universities,” which is a MUCH MORE NEUTRAL assessment of people whose views may entail rioting, looting, burning down Black communities, getting well-meaning profs fired or punished, etc. As written, though, these two “sides” are hardly the extremes on the continuum, although Soc. Science Prof IS correct to observe that “both extremes want college students to turn out on their side politically.”
In the classroom and in scholarly literature, however, are there many right-wing extremists pitching their Climate-denying rhetoric? Do many harbor overt (or even covert) racist beliefs that they share with students or other scholars (except in the most misconstrued “brains” of cancel-culture fanatics? Yet we read everyday about students and profs who fall victim to SO-CALLED “leftists” (who are more “P.C.” police than Marxists) that ruin reputations, file false complaints, and get people fired.
As the old saying goes (I’m paraphrasing): “Academics, heal thyselves!”
Finally, to end on a positive note, I also agree with Soc. sci prof on his closing argument — “AAUP would work in concert, not in competition, with Heterodox Academy” — provided that they both tried to maintain some REAL neutrality and were willing to really confront extremists on both ends of the spectrum — and even those outside the spectrum! That would entail a VERY CAREFUL attention to semantics and rhetoric, no?.
“Off the top of my head, I can’t think of a single example where a student was ever punished by a college for a view they expressed in a class”
That’s an interesting statement. Do you not remember Howard Finkelstein yelling and threatening a student at Brookdale for not only expressing a view in the classroom, but also exposing that the faculty member in question making completely bogus, unacademic claims that males cannot be sexually assaulted? Did you forget that the college attempted to punish the students after the video recording came out and later apologized? I seem to remember you going to great lengths to defend Finkelstein and Brookdalw over at Inside Higher Ed.
It’s true that I defended Prof. Howard Finkelstein (https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/04/18/new-jersey-community-college-investigating-professor-who-swore-conservative-student). I don’t think professors should be fired for arguing with students or for swearing, and they should be criticized instead of fired for their flaws. I don’t believe Finkelstein ever threatened the student. The college did not attempt to punish the student for his views, nor the student who recorded it. So my statement is indeed accurate. No students were punished for expressing their views in class. The college did wrongly investigate the student about his gun ownership to determine if he posed a violent threat, but there was no harassment investigation, and no punishment of any students.