Survey: 30% of college students find violence acceptable to stop campus speakers

A new survey from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression finds that three in ten American college students still regard violence as an acceptable means of silencing campus speakers — a figure that has fallen modestly from last year, yet stands ten points higher than it did four years ago. The data arrives in the shadow of Charlie Kirk's assassination at Utah Valley University in September 2025, an event that may have pressed some students to reckon with where the logic of forceful opposition ultimately leads. Whether this moment of reckoning will hold, or whether it is merely a tr