Student Activism and Free Speech

Student activism on college campuses has been an indicator of the most pressing social issues and political pressures in the United States since the mid-twentieth century. College students and university campus climates have served as barometers for broader national debates regarding war, economic policy, social inequalities, civil liberties, and cultural representation. While student action has been ongoing since the 1960s, the twenty-first century has seen a marked resurgence of campus free-speech debates and activism and an increase in student participation in public demonstrations of their political views. According to an annual study of incoming freshmen conducted by the UCLA Higher Education Research Institute, 38 percent of freshmen in 2019 reported that they were at least somewhat likely to participate in...