Students Largely Oppose Punishment for Objectionable Speech

Two years after protests over the Israel-Hamas war roiled college campuses, resulting in the arrests of more than 3,000 students and faculty, a new study finds that students generally oppose punishing “objectionable speech,” unless they consider it “highly harmful.”

The study, conducted by researchers from the Universities of Pennsylvania and Colorado and Stanford and Columbia Universities and published in April in Science Advances, also found that students’ views of objectionable speech depend largely on whom it is targeted at.

Based on a series of online survey experiments conducted with just over 3,000 college students in July 2024, the report shows that about two-thirds of students believe “historically marginalized groups” should be treated with an extra level of protection from harmful speech—a perspective the researchers describe as “particularism.” In those cases, students consider some form of punishment justified for the perpetrators. One-third of respondents think the same protection standard should apply to all groups, a view known as “universalism.”

Students generally supported equal levels of protection for both Jewish and Muslim targets—the demographic groups most affected by the 2024 protests—and at a level higher than for white students in a similar situation.

Those trend lines correlated in part with political and ideological affiliations, and were weaker among respondents who held strong views on the issues. 

The authors noted the study’s applications beyond higher ed.

“The patterns we uncover shed light on the underlying factors that fuel disagreements over campus speech, including the competing normative commitments to universal protections versus targeted safeguards for marginalized groups,” they wrote. “As campuses serve as microcosms for broader societal debates, understanding these dynamics offers insights into the challenges of fostering inclusive dialogue while navigating the limits of free expression.”