Why free speech looks like political violence to Gen Z
College campuses are supposed to be war zones. But not the kind with bullets. They are designed to be conceptual battlefields of ideology and clashes of opinion of our brightest and best youth.
After violent campus protests, assassination attempts on President Donald Trump, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare and Charlie Kirk it reveals there is something amiss with young people. (Each alleged shooter was in his 20s.) Political violence in America is at its highest since the 1970s, outpacing last year by double digits with a record 150 politically violent acts so far in 2025.
Jonathan Haidt, the social psychologist and researcher known for “The Anxious Generation” and “The Coddling of the American Mind,” posited back in 2015 that political violence would increase among youth in correlation with the increase in promoting that speech is violence. He, along with fellow researcher Greg Lukianoff, wrote an article Why It’s a Bad Idea to Tell Students Words Are Violence explaining their sociological framework.
Fast forward 10 years and it looks like they called it. Here are some startling new statistics on college students’ perspective of political violence:
- According to the annual College Free Speech Rankings survey by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, the national average reveals a startling one in three college students said it is acceptable to use violence to stop a political speaker.
- The same report found that nearly half Gen Z and about 2 in 10 millennials found it acceptable to “forcibly occupy public buildings” or “kill or physically harm” elected officials, respectively.
- A September YouGov poll showed that among adults under 30, 19% said political violence can sometimes be justified, compared to just 11% of Americans overall.
- The Edelman Trust Barometer in January reported that 53% of 18 to 34-year-olds approve of violence, property damage, or misinformation as tools for social change. Among Gen Z, 31% believe violence is an appropriate way to drive change.
Current trends tell us that a large percentage of college-age youth are anxious and/or depressed when they arrive on college campuses. Misidentifying words as violence sets the stage for worsening anxiety. Telling young people that their safety is not only based on physical threats conflates the identification of “safe places.” Are we talking about bulletproof glass or political homogeneity?
Safety has become one of society’s catch-all answers to the youth mental health crisis — physical, mental, emotional — and it’s even trickled into academia with ideological safety. You’re not truly safe unless you’re unoffended or unprovoked. This isn’t clinically or societally beneficial.
This presents a conundrum for young people as cognitive provocation lies at the center of college education based on argumentative dialogue between individuals, where the educated society at its best would debate and encourage intellectual discord to challenge assumptions, uncover contradictions, and clarify concepts.
However, there should be no place for discrimination or abuse. Haidt makes special mention of the delineation. “To be clear, when we refer to ‘free speech,’ we are not talking about things like threats, intimidation, and incitement. The First Amendment provides categorical exceptions for those because such words are linked to actual physical violence. The First Amendment also excludes harassment — when words are used in a directed pattern of discriminatory behavior.”
There are two ways parents, professors and educational administrators can begin to address this problem keeping the mental health of students in mind.
Anxiety cannot narrowly be identified as always pathological or clinically significant. There are normative levels of anxiety, which unfamiliar, unpopular or provoking speech can elicit. Intellectual conflict is uncomfortable and debate can make anyone’s blood boil. Anxiety avoidance has been a modern parental blind spot. Overprotecting children from age-appropriate anxiety at a young age only blindsides them when they do enter the real world of stress-eliciting scenarios. Teaching youth how to manage normal levels of short term anxiety, not avoid it, is key.
Thinking dispassionately about controversial issues is a skill. Trying to rationally see a different perspective on a passionate topic takes time and effort. Parents, K-12 teachers and professors should offer age appropriate opportunities to practice and rehearse emotional regulation within the debate of ideas. Start slow with topics like fruit on pizza instead of the death penalty or transgender rights in sports leagues.
We must educate students about the difference between free speech and violence, harassment and intellectual dissent, First Amendment rights and threats, intimidation and incitement. These civics lessons are not simple but are essential. Once again, there is much nuance. This is illustrated by a quote used by Haidt from a 2010 judicial statement regarding speech on college campuses.
“The right to provoke, offend, and shock lies at the core of the First Amendment. This is particularly so on college campuses. Intellectual advancement has traditionally progressed through discord and dissent, as a diversity of views ensures that ideas survive because they are correct, not because they are popular. Colleges and universities — sheltered from the currents of popular opinion by tradition, geography, tenure and monetary endowments — have historically fostered that exchange. But that role in our society will not survive if certain points of view may be declared beyond the pale.”
Ending the wave of youth acceptance of political violence is possible. This is a bipartisan problem and it will take the entire community regulating their own individual anxiety during passionate political discourse, practicing the skills of civic debate, teaching the nuances of free speech rights and holding perpetrators of threats, intimidation and incitement accountable.
Beth Collums is an Atlanta-based writer. With a professional background in child and family therapy, she often writes about mental health, relationships and education.
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