Campus conservatives have suffered violence from their ideologically opposing peers for years, but recent events, such as findings from a campus speech survey, an academic study, and the murder of Charlie Kirk, have shown that the violent opposition has escalated to new heights.
A day before Charlie Kirk, a conservative influencer and leader of the nation’s largest conservative youth movement, was murdered at Utah Valley State University, The College Fix reported on the overwhelming student support for violence to stop campus speech.
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A survey from the Foundation of Individual Rights and Expression, which studied over 68,000 students from 238 American colleges, recorded that 15% of students believe violence towards a campus speaker is justified. The same survey found that 52% of students find it acceptable to block others from attending a campus speech.
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According to the survey, one in three students believes that using violence to stop campus speech is acceptable, with 2% deeming it ‘always acceptable’, 13% ‘sometimes acceptable’, and 19% ‘rarely acceptable’, the survey stated.
Following the survey’s release on Tuesday, the organization’s Chief Research Advisor, Sean Stevens, issued a news release expressing his concerns over the findings, claiming that this is an “American problem.”
“More students than ever think violence and chaos are acceptable alternatives to peaceful protest,” “This finding cuts across partisan lines. It is not a liberal or conservative problem — it’s an American problem,” Stevens wrote.
The organization’s President and CEO, Greg Lukianoff, added that a student’s inability to mediate with opposing views only increases the nationwide polarization.
“This will only harm students’ ability to think critically and create rifts between them. We must champion free speech on campus as a remedy to our culture’s deep polarization,” he added.
Recent events have only reinforced the findings of the survey. Influential political figure Charlie Kirk is dead after suffering a gunshot wound from an on-campus Turning Point USA event at Utah Valley State University.
Kirk isn’t the first, and unfortunately, might not be the last victim, of on-campus violence over a political difference. Colleges have become a breeding ground for violence and extremism.
In the last two years alone, political disagreements between students have led to serious assaults, sabotage, and harassment toward students.
As reported by The College Fix, an analysis from the University of Indiana’s Study of Contemporary Anti-Semitism Research Lab spearheaded by Professor Gunter Jikeli showed that “highly coordinated” anti-Semitic rhetoric among left-leaning students.
“While political debate and student activism are vital to academic freedom, the rhetoric and actions of some groups now frequently cross the line into antisemitism, creating a hostile climate,” the report stated.
Earlier this year, two student activists for Turning Point USA, the group spearheaded by Kirk, were physically assaulted with a bike lock while tabling.
Years before, in 2019, a conservative activist was assaulted for attempting to recruit his peers to join at the University of California, Berkeley. In the same year, The College Fix reported that Chico State College Republicans President Michael Curry and his colleagues were “spat on, battered, assaulted, followed around campus, sexually harassed, and even mobbed by 300 students at once.”
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“This is the kind of environment that has been created by the modern-day college campus,” Curry told The College Fix.
These events, and countless others, go to show the violent increase and escalation of on-campus violence toward conservatives, who do nothing other than disagree with opinions shared by their peers.