Posted on 02/02/2023 5:52:42 PM PST by DeweyCA
MADISON, Wis. — Most students who responded to a survey about free speech on University of Wisconsin campuses said they’re afraid to express their views on controversial topics in class because they fear other students won’t agree or it could hurt their grades, according to findings released Wednesday.
A third of respondents, meanwhile, said they’ve felt pressure from an instructor to agree with a certain viewpoint. Almost half said they at least somewhat agree that administrators should bar controversial speakers if some students find the message offensive.
“I want the University of Wisconsin System to be looked upon as a beacon across the country where people want to go if free speech rights are very important to them,” Republican state Rep. David Murphy, chairman of the Assembly universities committee, said during a panel discussion on the survey results at UW-Oshkosh on Wednesday afternoon. “Our ideas need to be unsafe on campus. They need to be something we expect to be challenged and we cannot be offended by that.”
Free speech issues have come to the forefront in academia, as Republicans push schools to crack down on students who disrupt conservative speakers and to allow conservative speakers on campuses. The GOP also has maintained that liberal professors are indoctrinating students or making them feel uncomfortable about expressing conservative views.
The survey findings are certain to provide talking points for Wisconsin’s Republican legislators looking to cut UW funding in the next state budget.
UW-Stout’s Menard Center for Public Policy and Service sent the survey to undergraduates at all 13 UW System campuses last fall. The Menard family, a major Republican donor that founded the Menards home improvement store chain, donated $2.6 million to the center in 2019 and contributed $100,000 toward the survey. Republican Ryan Owens, a UW-Madison political science professor who ran unsuccessfully for attorney general in 2021, sat on an advisory board that reviewed the survey before it went out to students.
UW-Whitewater Interim Chancellor Jim Henderson was so incensed with plans for the survey that he resigned over it in April. He said then that he was upset over then-Interim System President Michael Falbo’s decision to send out the survey after initially deciding that institutions wouldn’t do it. He accused Falbo of changing his mind because he feared political consequences from Republican lawmakers concerned about campus leaders stamping out conservative viewpoints.
Falbo countered that the university board overseeing human research had approved the survey.
The survey was emailed to students at all 13 UW system schools last fall. Nearly 10,500 of the system’s 161,000 students responded.
The survey asked students if they there have been times when they’ve wanted to express their thoughts on a controversial topic in class but decided to remain silent. Almost 57% of respondents said yes.
A little more than 60% said they were afraid other students would disagree with them and 31% said they were afraid someone would file a complaint about them. About 40% said they were afraid their grades would suffer if they spoke up. Three-fourths of those students identified themselves as “very conservative.”
Nearly 37% of respondents said they’ve felt pressured by an instructor to agree with a specific viewpoint, with 64% of those students identifying as very conservative.
When asked how strongly they believe that university administrators should disinvite speakers if some students feel those speakers’ messages are offensive, one-third responded “not at all” or “a little.” About a quarter said “somewhat,” about 20% said “quite a bit” and 10% responded “a great deal.”
About a third of the students said they’d been taught at least something about the First Amendment, which guarantees free speech, in their classes.
Franciska Coleman, a UW-Madison assistant law professor who served on the advisory board with Owens, said during the panel discussion at UW-Oshkosh that college students don’t know how to disagree without taking things personally.
Owens, who also sat on the discussion panel, agreed. He said students are taught since kindergarten to avoid conflict, which is a “real problem.” He added that college classrooms aren’t always supposed to be “cathartic experiences.”
Democratic state Sen. Kelda Roys, who sits on the Senate universities committee, said students shouldn’t be “intellectually coddled” and shouldn’t be afraid to be questioned.
“It’s an opportunity for you to learn,” she said. “It’s an opportunity to persuade. ... The university should not be an arm of censorship.”
University of Wisconsin-Madison Student Anna Taylor said a lack of opinions reduces the impact of classroom discussions.
“It hurts conversation in classrooms, especially if you don’t actually express your opinion,” Taylor said. “I think people having different opinions is a great thing and it’s a great thing to have in a classroom to have discussions about as well.”
What’s new? In my English and Lit classes in the ‘80’s, I learned quickly to write what the lib prof wanted to read to get A’s.
The entire secondary and university level education system in our country is controlled, regimented by and made foul by leftist academics.
Tell your kid to go to Hillsdale or vo-tech. I wouldn’t suggest any kid mortgage their future for this crap education.
I know what you mean.
Someone said a white male on the job has to walk a daily gauntlet to avoid violating the slightest feminist or black or Muslim rules against him. Now add LGBTQ+.
Same in any school or college, in spades——uh, er, uh, I mean most emphatically so.
RE: A third of respondents, meanwhile, said they’ve felt pressure from an instructor to agree with a certain viewpoint. Almost half said they at least somewhat agree that administrators should bar controversial speakers if some students find the message offensive.
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////By 7th grade I figured out that although I totally disagreed with many others’ viewpoints if I wanted fairness and freedom of speech in this country then I had to accept the others’ rights and they should accept my right to express mine.
Had a public library book around then that had the line of Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter: The most difficult right for us to accept in others is freedom for the thought we hate.
Today: Shut up the Trump fans, the Christians, the climate change deniers, the males....
Along with whitey and the heterosexual masculine manly men, meaning you were born male and identify as such.
A conservative professor friend of mine said this started in the mid 90’s.
She was eventually forced out as the college refused to give her tenure or even a basic teaching assignment.
I earned a BSEE (‘70) and a MBA (‘77)) from UW Madison. That was before political correctness took over.
I remember during the Psychology class, during my MBA studies, I took issue in combined class with the professor who was jokingly talking about electroshock therapy during research studies. I stood up and addressed the flippancy in his presentation about a potentially dangerous tool. The exchange went on for a good five minutes until he told me to sit down a shut up.
My TA told me at our next section that there was no way I would get higher than a C for the course, unless I made a public apology to the professor. I told my TA that the professor could go pound sand. He laughed and said he and all of his fellow TAs had hoped that would be my response to that arrogant ass.
I completed the course. Got Bs and As in all of my work and exams, and got a C. I considered it a throw-away and it didn’t prevent me from the degree.
I couldn’t imagine attending this Communist-infested college, today!
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