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Nick Cohen has a piece in the Jan/Feb issue of the Critic on "left wing authoritarianism". In it he notes a "poll by Survation found a quarter of British students self-censor because they fear their views will clash with the “woke” values promoted by their university."
Cohen argues that "further education, which ought to emancipate the mind, had become an intellectual prison where students bite their tongues for fear of offending the guards."
I'm thinking - really? Then I remember what he's gleefully referencing. It's lifted straight from the MoS headline https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8973601/QUARTER-students-self-censor-opinions-fear-universitys-woke-cancel-culture.html
They got to the headline via a question in a Survation survey that was worded as follows: "I hold some views that are legal to express, but my university, student union or peers consider these views unacceptable”.
You'll note the question makes non reference to "woke" views and includes "peers". Once you add in peers, you wonder how it’s as low as 30 per cent! Who doesn’t have peers that would consider at least some of their views as unacceptable?!?
Crucially, a close look at the types of views students have hidden is interesting too. Only 13 per cent of students have hidden political views, 9 per cent have hidden religious views and 7 per cent have hidden ethical views. That suggests a remarkably open student culture to me.
Then you look at the polling sample. It’s an unweighted poll of 526 students and 502 graduates, where the latter group have graduated in the past five years – so if on a standard undergraduate programme could have been Freshers in 2012.
Graduates were TWICE as likely to have “strongly agreed” that the cancellation of events due to views held by the speakers had become more frequent – something they probably would believe if they read the papers!
Who funded the polling? Oh well that's whole other story - all written up here. Brace brace. https://wonkhe.com/wonk-corner/interrogating-the-culture-wars-story-of-the-week/
The Cohen piece by the way is here https://thecritic.co.uk/issues/january-february-2021/round-up-the-ordinary-subjects/
