
© Reuters / Harrison McClaryStudents are pictured on the campus of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.
US college campuses have traditionally been known as havens of free speech among students, but now professors are increasingly sharing their opinions - and many undergraduates are afraid to disagree with them, a new survey found.
Some 800 full-time undergraduate students at private and public four-year universities took part in the survey earlier this month that was conducted by McLaughlin & Associates on behalf of Yale University's William F. Buckley, Jr. Program.
More than half of those students (52 percent) said that their professors or course instructors express their own unrelated social or political beliefs "often" in class, according to the poll results that are due to be released next week, but were
seen in advance by
The Wall Street Journal found.
But unlike their professors, the young people find it more difficult to speak up. The survey found that 53 percent of the students polled often feel "intimidated" in sharing their ideas, opinions, or beliefs if they differ from their professor's. That's an
increase of four percentage points from three years ago.
Comment: While these facilities are a 'smashing success', they are not a substitute for therapy nor do they alleviate the causes of an aggression problem. And surely, there are more 'constructive' ways to have fun and not literally 'go to pieces.'