Have you gotten the feeling lately America’s younger generation just can’t tolerate speech they don’t approve of? There is now statistical evidence that is the case.
According to the Pew Research Center:
“American Millennials are far more likely than older generations to say the government should be able to prevent people from saying offensive statements about minority groups, according to a new analysis of Pew Research Center sur
vey data on free speech and media across the globe.”
As Catherine Rampell writes in The Washington Post one of the main tools for the censorship being pushed by Millennials are “trigger warnings”:
“You’ve probably heard about “trigger warnings,” which alert readers or viewers that what lies ahead might be upsetting or offensive. Initially such warnings were intended to help protect sexual assault survivors from reliving their trauma.”
“The takeaway? Trigger warning mandates remain rare, but plenty of educators (and presumably students) already feel their chilling effects on speech. Eggshells, it seems, lie everywhere, strewn by conservatives and liberals alike.”
“Fewer than 1 percent of survey respondents said their institutions had adopted policies on trigger warnings, but 7.5 percent said students at their institutions had initiated efforts to require them. Twice as many – 15 percent – reported that students in their own classes had requested trigger warnings. Likewise, 12 percent said their students had complained when they hadn’t been warned about distressing content.”
“While media coverage of campus political correctness crusades typically focuses on racial, ethnic and gender sensitivities, professors are getting pushback from conservative and evangelical students, too.”
“At the very least, our institutions of higher learning are increasingly becoming both victims of, and co-conspirators to, youthful liberalism.”
Matt Acuña Buxton is a long-time political reporter who has written for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner and The Midnight Sun political blog. He also authors the daily politics newsletter, The Alaska Memo, and can frequently be found live-tweeting public meetings on Twitter.
