Data Shows Free Speech Threats May Not Be Coming From The Left After All

Despite the dominant discourse, liberals appear to be less censorious than conservatives

In recent years, it’s become established parlance in the mainstream media and on the internet that free speech has been stifled by leftist college students. Everyone from Donald Trump to Jonathan Chait to Noam Chomsky has criticized college students for attempting to silence controversial speakers, most of whom are conservatives. For the most part, these students are seen as left-wing activists, which conservatives have jumped on to portray colleges as authoritarian and a signal of decay in America.

However, new analysis of data from the General Social Survey might lend credence to the left-wing students. Justin Murphy, of the University of Southampton, analyzed 44 years of GSS Data, and found the results to diverge from the built-up consensus.

Since 1972, the GSS has asked whether certain people should be able to speak in their community, specifically: a racist, a communist, an atheist, a homosexual, and someone who believes the military should take over the United States government. Murphy found that, among all ideological stripes, support for free speech rights has risen dramatically in the past half century, except for racists. Support for the free speech rights of racists was about equal in 1972 and 2016, with a small bump up in support for their free speech rights in the 90s.

Via Justin Murphy

The analysis also found that those who identified as “extremely liberal” — the furthest left categorization in the GSS — were the most supportive of free speech across the board. Support diminished as people became more conservative. Those identified as extremely liberal were about as likely to support the free speech rights of racists in 2016 as they were in 1972.

Those who identified as liberal or slightly liberal, on the other hand, were markedly less likely to support the free speech rights of racists in 2016 than in 1972. But liberals and slight liberals were still likely to support greater rights to free speech for the other categories 44 years after the initial data point.

Via Justin Murphy

The data is not conclusive, of course, and the GSS surveys the general population rather than being narrowly tailored to college students. But the general trends in society point to a markedly different reality than the one constructed by people across the political spectrum of a free speech crisis perpetrated by young left-wing activists.