Some recent polling shows that leftist college students are increasingly in favor of free speech on campus, even if it hurts people’s feelings and might lead to violence. What’s behind this change?

In today’s Martin Center article, Duke student Sherman Criner looks at the question and concludes that there has been no philosophical shift on the left. He writes:

This sudden shift by universities in response to the Israel-Hamas War explains the strange bipartisan support for campus free speech that Axios has discovered. Unfortunately, college Democrats have not suddenly changed their minds about the merits of free speech as an instrument of traditional civil discourse. They are merely experiencing something their conservative peers have dealt with for years: the harsh reality of supporting an unpopular cause on a college campus.

Read the whole thing.