With Student Activism, Liberal Intolerance Also Rising on US Campuses, Survey Finds
An annual survey of first-year students suggests that colleges and universities across America are experiencing a rise in student activism over the past year, and with that an increase in liberal intolerance.
Students' interest in political and civic engagement has reached the highest levels since the study began 50 years ago, said the report of the survey of 141,189 full-time, first-year students from around the U.S. held by the Higher Education Research Institute at the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies.
The survey, which is part of the Cooperative Institutional Research Program, found that nearly 1 in 10 incoming first-year students expects to participate in student protests while in college, marking an increase of 2.9 percentage points over the 2014 survey.
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"Student activism seems to be experiencing a revival, and last fall's incoming freshman class appears more likely than any before it to take advantage of opportunities to participate in this part of the political process," said Kevin Eagan, director of CIRP. "We observed substantial gains in students' interest in political and community engagement across nearly every item on the survey related to these issues."
The rates of increase vary considerably by race or ethnicity, the survey said.
Black students in 2015 are the most likely to report a "very good chance" of participating in student protests while in college (16 percent), and black students also have experienced the greatest increase over 2014 with a 5.5 percentage-point jump.
About one in 10 Latino students reported a "very good chance" of participating in student protests while in college, representing an increase of 3.2 percentage points over 2014, the survey added, noting that these figures for both Black and Latino students represent the highest recorded in the history of this item.
Asked if colleges have the right to ban extreme speakers from campus, more than 43 percent said they "agree strongly" or "agree somewhat."
The survey also had questions that could reveal the level of intolerance.
For example, more than 70 percent said colleges should prohibit racist or sexist speech on campus. The survey has been asking this question for several decades, and 2015 marked the highest percentage of positive responses on record, according to The Washington Post, which noted that in the early 1990s, around 60 percent were for the prohibition.
The 2015 survey introduced several new items "to improve the instrument's inclusivity," and found that about 9 percent of respondents skipped the question.
Of the students who provided an answer to the sexual orientation item, more than 93 percent identified as heterosexual or straight. In the other categories, 3.2 percent identified as bisexual, 1.4 percent as "other," 1.1 percent as gay, 0.6 percent as lesbian, and 0.5 percent as queer.
The survey found that students who identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, or "other," felt overwhelmed and depressed in the past year compared to their heterosexual or straight classmates.
The survey also found that more students than ever (27.5 percent) selected "none" as their religious preference, a 2.9 percentage point increase from 2013, and an increase of more than 12 percentage
points from when the question was first asked in 1971.
