A new survey reveals that most of the students who participated in a free speech assessment at the University of Wisconsin confirmed they fear expressing their views on some topics because other students will disagree, or it could hurt their grades.
WMTV reported a full one-third said they’ve felt pressure from an instructor to agree with a certain viewpoint.
“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 in the report.
The results were discussed at UW-Oshkosh.
Campus speech has become a battleground in recent years, as leftist students disrupt conservative speakers, student clubs and more. Their stated perspective is that those who disagree with the leftist ideology simply do not have free speech and should not be allowed.
As a result, Republicans have pressured universities to protect free speech, and “crack down on students who disrupt conservative speakers,” the report said.
The survey was done by UW-Stout’s Menard Center for Public Policy and Service, and involved undergraduates at all 13 campuses.
The survey was funded partly from a donation from the family that founded Menards, a chain of home improvement centers, and it was controversial even before it went out.
The report explained, “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.”
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Almost 57% of the respondents – which included thousands of students – said there have been times they’ve wanted to express their opinion on a controversial topic – but remained silent.
Sixty percent said they feared other students would disagree and 31% said they worried someone would file a complaint targeting 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,'” the report said.
Thirty-seven percent said they’ve felt pressure from an instructor to agree with a “specific” viewpoint.
He continued, “These polls are an indictment of the entire teaching academy. We have converted our universities into echo chambers reflecting overwhelmingly (and sometimes virtually exclusively) liberal faculties. When these polls are raised, faculty often shrug off the concern for free speech and the complaints of rising viewpoint intolerance. It simply does not seem to matter that the vast majority of our students are consistently polling as being afraid to speak openly in classes.”
He also noted the response that is developing.
“This latest poll comes as states are moving to use the power of the purse to force greater choice in education and diversity on faculties. This is a state school system and the legislature has every reason to seek measures to address the lack of intellectual diversity and tolerance on campuses or reduce the level of state funding for these schools.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: What is behind the current war against America’s children? Why are so many adults killing their unborn children right up to the moment of birth, or even after? Why are millions of kids sexualized virtually from birth, and injected with an experimental “vaccine” proven to be both ineffective and dangerous, then as toddlers transported to events glorifying mentally ill, demonically possessed men dressed as women?
Why are America’s children systematically sexualized at school, and by transgender recruiters on social media platforms like TikTok, seducing many into “identifying” as the opposite gender, or a brand-new imaginary gender, then encouraged to take powerful drugs and hormones and have their healthy breasts amputated or undergo chemical or surgical castration?
Why are our children simultaneously indoctrinated with toxic Marxist ideologies like “critical race theory” intended to condition them to hate and reject their own country, parents, faith, race, gender and themselves? Why are they simultaneously being frightened of the future by being fed lurid, terrifying – and groundless – apocalyptic tales of the imminent destruction of the world due to global warming?
No wonder youth suicides have skyrocketed, as have depression, anxiety, addiction and drug overdoses. Indeed, fentanyl, the No. 1 cause of death of younger Americans 18 to 45, destroys multitudes of children annually.
Make no mistake: The harm being done to America’s children in this multi-front war is not accidental: Children are the primary target.
WHY? How can all this be happening in the greatest nation on earth? Who and what is behind it? And HOW CAN IT BE STOPPED?
Find out in the explosive January issue of WND’s critically acclaimed monthly Whistleblower magazine, “WINNING THE WAR AGAINST AMERICA’S CHILDREN,” available in both print and state-of-the-art digital editions.
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