USC survey shows lack of public support for student protests

Ten months after pro-Palestinian encampments sprang up across U.S. college campuses, sparking backlash from politicians, university leaders and pro-Israel students and faculty, the public is still extremely critical of student protests, according to new research conducted by the Center for Applied Research in Education at the University of Southern California.

Conducted from October to December 2024, the survey asked 4,200 adults whether they thought certain student “free speech actions,” including criticizing their universities online, protesting world events by walking out of class or occupying campus buildings, were always, sometimes or never appropriate. More than half of respondents said several of the examples were never appropriate: leaving protest messages on property, shouting down speakers, occupying buildings in protest and disrupting graduation, which was the least popular protest action, with about eight in 10 people saying it was never appropriate.

Even actions like criticizing their university on social media were relatively unpopular, with only 13 percent of respondents saying it’s always appropriate to do so and 38 percent saying it’s never appropriate.

Respondents were far more likely to approve of universities’ steps to stop protests, with 86 percent saying it was sometimes or always OK for police to arrest students who were breaking the law. Only slightly fewer, 79 percent, said it would be OK for police to break up a student protest—and the question didn’t even specify whether or not laws were broken.

Over all, every example of an institution’s response to protests received a higher approval rating than any example of a protest action.

“I would say the low levels of support for unqualified free speech, that definitely surprised me,” said Morgan Polikoff, one of the researchers on the project, which was funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. “There are not a lot of free speech universalists out there, I would say that. The results make that pretty clear.”

The survey did not ask about specific causes, but Polikoff speculated that the pro-Palestinian protests that reached a head last spring were likely top of mind for most respondents. Still, though they dominated the news cycle at the time, encampments earned only moderate condemnation from respondents, with 40 percent saying they were never acceptable. About the same share—41 percent—said they were sometimes an appropriate form of protest.

Free speech experts and historians say the results aren’t particularly surprising; throughout history, older people have often criticized student protests in America, going back to at least the 1920s, according to Robert Cohen, a professor of history and social studies at New York University and a fellow at the National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement.

“Movements like the freedom rides in ’61, the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley—all of them were unpopular. All of them,” he said. “Why is that? It’s because the culture of the country, when it comes to youth, is pretty conservative. Students, their role is to go to school, obey orders and come home. That’s what they’re supposed to do. Students who are protesting are breaking away from that role that they’re supposed to play.”

Indeed, older respondents were far more likely than younger ones to oppose various types of student protests; 18- to 34-year-olds were three times more likely to always approve of encampments than those over 65, for example. Republicans were also generally more opposed to student free speech and more accepting of shutting down protests—although not by massive margins in every case.

Angus Johnston, a historian of student protests and a professor at Hostos Community College in New York, said that some of the protest actions that received the most condemnation surprised him—including the 76 percent of respondents who said it’s never appropriate to write messages on institutional property. While that category includes permanent graffiti, he noted, it also includes chalking on sidewalks.

“One of the distinctions that I think is really important to draw is a distinction between protest that is disruptive and protest that is destructive. One may fall in opposition of both or in favor of both, but I think that is an important distinction to draw. The idea that somebody chalking outside or even on the wall of an administration building is somehow hugely beyond the pale [is something] that I would have liked to see this study look a little bit deeper into,” he said.

The report also touches on public approval of diversity, equity and inclusion programs, which varied more sharply by political party. The majority of Democrats found all four examples of DEI in higher education sometimes or always appropriate: 82 percent approved of required DEI training, 76 percent of hiring DEI staff, 73 percent of requiring DEI coursework and 54 percent of requiring DEI statements.

While Republicans were much more likely to call such practices inappropriate, DEI appears more popular—or at least accepted—among party members than one might assume, given President Donald Trump’s efforts to eliminate it from higher education. For example, more than half of Republicans said DEI training was sometimes (29 percent) or always (22 percent) appropriate.

(This story has been updated to correct the number of survey respondents.)