Yale’s Quiet Majority
By James Freeman
May 3, 2017 2:20 p.m. ET
At last, there’s hopeful news on intellectual liberty from a college campus. A new survey of students at Yale finds that a large majority favor free speech. Perhaps the kids can now also persuade the school’s administration of the virtues of academic freedom.
Your humble correspondent is an alumnus of the school and serves on the board of the William F. Buckley, Jr. Program at Yale, which commissioned the survey of 872 Yale undergraduates. Conducted from April 17th to the 23rd by the polling firm McLaughlin & Associates, the survey found that 72% of respondents oppose the idea of Yale “having speech codes to regulate speech for students and faculty,” while 16% favor the idea. Of course depending on one’s point of view, it can seem reassuring that free speech still wins in a landslide or disturbing that 16% of students actually want to surrender their right to express themselves. This column prefers to view the glass as 72% full.
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