When it comes to free speech on college campuses, students are generally reluctant to punish offensive speech unless it’s very harsh or targeted at minorities. A new research experiment reveals that most undergraduate students believe that marginalized communities deserve special protection from offensive speech, but these values are often abandoned when students are pushed by their own strong political ideologies. The results of this study were published in the journal Science Advances.
Recent political protests have turned universities into highly visible battlegrounds over the limits of acceptable expression. In the wake of the October 2023 Hamas attack and the ensuing war in Gaza, campus debates focused on whether certain slogans and statements were legitimate exercises of free speech or crossed the line into punishable hatred. These controversies raise questions about how young people interpret their right to speak freely while circumventing the need to prevent physical and psychological harm.
The conflict over speech attracted national media attention and led to congressional hearings. Universities often serve as microcosms of democratic societies, where competing visions of pluralism and tolerance are publicly contested.
Ran Abramitsky, an economist at Stanford University, led a team of researchers investigating this tension. Abramitsky and his colleagues wanted to understand how students draw the boundaries of protected expression in real-world scenarios. Past polls have often asked broad questions about offensive speech. Such research rarely examines the mechanisms underlying these attitudes, such as whether students’ judgments change based on the subject of what is being said or the context in which it is said.
The debate over regulating speech often focuses on two opposing philosophies. The first is a universalist approach. This model believes that all individuals, regardless of their identity or social status, should have equal protection under the law. The U.S. Supreme Court has generally followed this principle in rejecting hate speech laws that discriminate on the basis of status.
The second model relies on a particularistic approach. This view recognizes that historically marginalized groups may need additional protection from harmful speech. Some European democracies share this position. For example, the ban on Nazi symbols acknowledges the specific harm caused to vulnerable communities.
To see how these philosophies work in a university environment, researchers surveyed a nationally representative group of 3,065 undergraduate students in July 2024. The team designed three different online survey experiments. They distinguished between attitudes toward speech and attitudes toward physical protest tactics such as occupation and encampment construction. This allowed researchers to evaluate support for freedom of expression strictly on its own merits.
The first attempt was a policy experiment. Researchers asked students whether they supported or opposed campus rules prohibiting offensive public speech. The targets of the hypothetical offensive speech were randomly changed to include white, black, Jewish, Muslim, and transgender individuals.
As a result, we found a strong desire to protect marginalized identities. Students were more likely than whites to support policies that prohibit offensive speech directed at Jews and Muslims. Response rates for Jews and Muslims were similar to those for blacks and transgender people. This pattern indicates that the average student views Jews and Muslims as minorities deserving of similar levels of protection.
The second attempt was described as a professor’s experiment. Participants will read a scenario in which a teacher has made a controversial statement. The researchers randomized the identity of the target group, the context of the speech, and the severity of the statement. The severity ranges from professors claiming the group is playing the victim to get special treatment to saying the country would be a better place without them. Situations ranged from private text messages to public classroom lectures.
Students supported suspending or firing professors if their speech was perceived as more harmful. Saying the country would be better off without a particular group increased the likelihood of receiving disciplinary action by 24 percentage points compared to minor crimes. Students were also more willing to punish teachers when harmful comments targeted minority groups rather than white individuals. Although statements made during class lectures were perceived as more harmful than personal text messages, the context of the speech did not alter students’ support for punishment.
The third attempt was a student experiment. This mirrored the professor’s scenario, but included a hypothetical student who repeatedly made offensive remarks after being admonished by an administrator. For this test, the target group was limited to Jews or Muslims. The severity of the comments ranges from questioning the group’s loyalty to calling the group the root of all evil.
Again, the harshness of the language supported support for punishment. About 17% of students supported suspending or expelling colleagues who called the group disloyal. When a hypothetical student called a particular group the root of all evil, support for expulsion jumped by 45 percentage points. Participants also categorized statements differently based on severity. While only 11% of students classified this expression of loyalty as hate speech, 90% classified the root of all evil speech as hate speech. The researchers found no statistical difference in support for punishment, whether the subjects were Jewish or Muslim.
After these trials, the team directly asked participants their opinions on speech rules. They asked whether rules should take into account the target’s identity (such as race or gender). Approximately two-thirds of students supported the principle of particularism and supported identity-based protection. The remaining third held universalist views and were concerned that special protections could lead to selective suppression of unpopular views. Particularist and universalist students valued free speech equally, with approximately 75% of each group saying free speech was very important.
When researchers categorized participants based on these two philosophies, they found consistent patterns of behavior. Students who adopted a universalist approach did not support suspending or firing the professor in the second experiment, when the subjects were Muslim or transgender. Universalist students were also more likely than particularist students to support group-specific speech restrictions targeting white people.
In contrast, particularist students showed a higher willingness to punish teachers for speech targeting all minority groups. These students were significantly more likely to say that harsh remarks would cause physical or psychological harm when directed at minority people.
However, researchers have found that when ideological pressures surface, students may abandon their espoused principles. To test this, the team divided the sample by political ideology and a continuous sympathy index regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They wanted to see whether a principled approach to regulating speech could hold up against political alliances.
When strong social identities came into play, students’ commitment to the principles weakened. Right-wing universalists expressed less support for punishing professors who target Muslims or transgender people compared to white people. Pro-Israel universalists were less supportive of firing teachers who targeted Muslim and transgender students. Pro-Palestinian universalists were more likely to support firing professors who expressed hatred toward black or Muslim students.
Students at the Ideology Center were an exception. People without strong affiliations with either side of a foreign conflict tended to support the principle of free speech in all three experiments.
The researchers note several limitations and avenues for future investigation. Although student research is specifically targeted at university settings, it may not be universally reflective of the broader public domain. To test generalizability, the researchers conducted a subsequent follow-up study in a sample of U.S. adults.
The main pattern was reproduced in the adult sample. Perceived harm and target identity predicted support for restrictions. Although the adult sample was much more evenly divided between particularistic and universalist principles, ideological preoccupations still weakened these views, just as in the student group.
Future research could examine how disagreements over speech on campus evolve in response to changing social and political conditions. By tracking these attitudes over time, scientists can better understand how broader social debates shape the limits of expression.
The study, “Expression at the Limits: The Boundaries of Free Speech in the Gaza Crisis,” was authored by Ran Abramitsky, Guy Grossman, Iftach Lerkes, Hani Mansour, and Tamer Mitz.
Heading options
- Survey finds college students support speech rules that protect minorities
- Ideology overrides free speech principles on college campuses
- How college students draw the line between protected speech and hate
- How to navigate free speech on American campuses during the Gaza crisis
- Are the values of free speech on campus universal, or are they specific to marginalized groups?
- Students want harsher penalties for offensive speech targeting minorities
- War in Gaza tests the limits of free speech on college campuses
- Survey reveals how university students view hate speech and campus protests
- When does offensive language cross the line for college students?
- Freedom of expression and prevention of harm on polarized college campuses
- Identity and harshness shape student support for campus speech restrictions
- How universalist and particularistic values collide in debates over free speech on campus.
