45% Of College Students Justify Violence To Stop ‘Hate Speech’: Survey

Authored by Bryan Hyde via American Greatness,

A new survey finds that nearly half of undergraduate students support censorship, shout-downs, and physical violence to suppress what they consider “hate speech” or offensive ideas.

Fox News reports that the 2026 National Undergraduate Student Survey, released this month by the Buckley Institute, shows that 45 percent of undergraduate students surveyed believe physical violence can be justified to stop so-called hate speech. That number is up 6 points from 2025 and ties the all-time record set in 2023.

The survey, which polled 803 full-time undergraduate students at four-year public and private colleges across the United States, revealed several record-high metrics concerning free expression on campus, according to Yahoo.

A little over a year after Charlie Kirk’s assassination, 1 in 4 college students think “It should not be a surprise that his words had consequences.”

Our new survey found increasing undergrad comfort with violence and criminal prosecution for speech they don’t like. https://t.co/mxeoZ4up8Z

— Buckley Institute (@BuckleyInst) October 18, 2026

Other takeaways from the survey were that 46 percent of students support shout downs and 40 percent believe that offensive speech should be subject to criminal prosecution.

Some 42 percent of respondents said that political comments they disagree with can be harmful to their mental health, up 4 points from last year; the highest reading in the 5 years this question has been monitored.

The findings prompted Cornerstone University President Dr. Gerson Moreno-Riaño to warn that higher education has “lost its way.”

Moreno-Riaño told Fox News Digital:

American colleges and universities for a long time now have really ceased to form students morally and are teaching resentment, teaching grievance politics, teaching violent entitlement. So, when graduates leave these universities, they leave with that. They’re not leaving with a moral formation of their hearts, their minds, their lives. They’re leaving with resentment.

Moreno-Riaño also cautioned that many colleges and universities are preparing “socialists and Marxists” who want entitlement and to “destroy the system” rather than “build it, make it, refine it and improve it.”

The Cornerstone University president also stressed that American higher education “has to shift,” saying it needs to “take moral formation seriously and not be grounded in entitlement and grievance culture.”

The Buckley Institute survey was conducted online between Sept. 5 and Sept. 14 by Inquire LLC and included 803 full-time undergraduate students under age 25 attending four-year public or private colleges and universities.