After pro-Palestine encampments took place on college campuses nationwide in the spring of 2024, many adults now have a more negative opinion on student free speech actions.
A study published in February by the Understanding America Study (UAS), a USC-based internet panel of over 14,000 respondents, displayed an over 50% disapproval rating for many university student free speech actions such as occupying buildings and disrupting graduation ceremonies.
The study, led by researchers Dr. Anna Saavedra and Morgan Polikoff, collected 4,200 responses to a nationwide survey asking adults, around 50% having school-aged children at home, about their thoughts on different student and university protest actions.
A majority of both Republican and Democratic participants responded negatively to students skipping class to protest, shouting down speakers and holding walkouts. Less than 15% of participants showed full support of students demanding divestment and criticizing university figures on social media.
“Criticizing university leaders on social media is clearly quite peaceful,” Polikoff said, who is also a professor at the Rossier School of Education.
Only 13% of respondents found social media criticism to always be appropriate while demand for divestment only received 10% of absolute support.
Cal Green, an international exchange student from Ireland, isn’t surprised about these results.
“The sentiment is different [in Ireland], but I’m not surprised that this is what’s happening here,” Green said, a junior studying political science and economics.
Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives and civic education were also topics participants were questioned on. Saavedra confirmed the study represented a vast demographic of adults over 18 and the civic education questions displayed “promising” results, with both Democrat and Republican participants expressing support of civic activities.
The same support cannot be said for student free speech actions.
Despite this, for university actions against student protests, participants were shown to have more favorable opinions. A wider number of respondents thought it was always appropriate to shut down protests for learning and safety reasons, with learning purposes receiving 41% of participant support.
Andy Rodriguez, a sophomore studying public relations, said he understands why people want protests to shut down over safety reasons. However, he sees this reasoning as more of an excuse than a valid concern.
“I think that it’s just a way to silence people,” Rodriguez said.
Polikoff has his theories surrounding the results of the study.
“Even though we didn’t ask these questions about Israel and Palestine, I think it is certainly possible that some people were thinking about Israel and Palestine when they were answering these questions,” Polikoff said.
A year ago, pro-Palestine protests were scattered across the country with over 94% of them being held between October 2023 and early May 2024. This year, around 50 students protested at the USC Village and around the main campus, only briefly setting up an encampment before being disrupted by Department of Public Safety officials.
In the U.S., demonstrations have received backlash from the press and political figures. Last month, President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social that he would stop all funding for universities that authorized “illegal protests.” President Trump has kept that promise, canceling $400 million in federal funding for Columbia University, where a pro-Palestine encampment was held last year
As pro-Palestine protests continue at USC and other universities, Green, who is a student at Trinity College in Ireland, said the pro-Palestine protests at his school had a completely different outcome than many U.S. colleges. About 100 Trinity students held an encampment on university grounds, demanding the university cut academic and financial ties with Israel. After days of negotiations, students were able to pack up their tents in victory with the school agreeing to the students’ demands if they dissolved the encampment. As a result, there hasn’t been a protest on Trinity grounds since.
Green said one of the biggest reasons why the encampment didn’t implode with arrests or fights was because of the overall Irish public support of Palestine. According to a poll by Ireland Thinks on behalf of the Irish Anti-Apartheid Campaign for Palestine, 71% of people in Ireland believe Palestinians are living under apartheid through Israeli suppression. This majority, Green said, is because of Ireland’s history of colonization and oppression, building a sense of mutual understanding.
Looking back at his undergraduate years, Associate Writing Professor Matt Manson said he remembers the protests that occurred at University of California Berkeley and that the protests worked out in favor of the student body. Now, after his 30 years of work with USC, he said he believes the university is moving backward.
“I don’t think they responded to the encampments here properly,” Manson said. “And in ways, [it] goes against the basic ethos of a kind of world-class university.”
From the Anti-Vietnam War movement in the 1960s to the Black Lives Matter movement throughout the 20th century, university students have played a pivotal role in activism throughout U.S. history. And Manson thinks that civil resistance is one of the biggest markers of being a university student, saying “It’s a very important part of being in your early 20s.”
Green doesn’t shy away from this civil resistance, saying he supports disruption for change. “I am pro-Palestine,” Green said. “And I feel like the only way for the tide to change is for people to be louder.”
Even so, the survey found many adults in the US are prioritizing safety over disruption, with Polikoff saying people “might not like it but lots of surveys find that police are very popular.” In the study, 53% of participants found police arrests of students who break the law to always be appropriate.
“Most people have conditional support for student free speech,” Polikoff said. “But lots of people have basically no support for student free speech.”