Conservative students more tolerant, self-censored
Issues@Hand
AFA initiatives, Christian activism, news briefs
May 2020 – A report by University of North Carolina published in early March found that 49.6% of students with conservative views versus 12.5% with liberal views worry about their professors’ opinions of them changing once they become aware of the students’ social and political views. Likewise, 67.9% of conservatives have censored themselves at least once, contrasted to 24.1% of liberals who have done so.
This came after another study by the National Association of Scholars found that of over 12,000 U.S. college professors who made political donations, 98.5% were to Democrat candidates.
Peer-to-peer polarization is more significant, although conservative students are considerably more tolerant toward differing views. Conservative students (75.2%) said they worried their viewpoints would affect their peers’ opinions of them, while only 26.2% of liberals expressed the same concerns. Of students who believe it is appropriate to “create an obstruction” to stop a speaker with an objectionable view from speaking, 19% are liberal and only 3% are conservative. Likewise, 23% of liberal students and 3% of conservative students say they are not willing to be friends with someone with opposing ideology.
