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A recent poll found that over 90% of college students believe that words can be violence. This comes only three months after the legendary conservative free speech activist Charlie Kirk was shot and killed at a university in Utah.
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From CBN:
The new data was compiled by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), which asked more than 2,000 college students about their perceptions of free speech in the United States.
Staggeringly, researchers found 91% of respondents agreed to various extents that words are a form of violence, with only 9% believing words could not be violence. Two-hundred-and-four of the students surveyed were from Utah Valley University in Orem, where Kirk was fatally gunned down while peacefully and cordially taking questions from attendees.
A smaller but still alarming percentage of students (79%) said they agreed to varying degrees with the claim “silence is violence.”
These results are especially shocking in the wake of the assassination of Charlie Kirk, a figure who only used his words and yet was targeted with violence. As Sean Stevens, chief research advisor for FIRE, puts it, “When people start thinking that words can be violence, violence becomes an acceptable response to words.”
The results of the poll bear this idea out. 28% of respondents said they felt the use of violence to stop a speech on campus was at least rarely acceptable. While this is far from a majority, it is still shocking that nearly one-third of college students would say it is acceptable to use violence to stop a controversial campus speaker.
Additionally, a massive 73% of respondents said that political violence is a problem among conservatives, while only 63% said the same about progressives. This is despite the fact that the majority of recent political assassination attempts have been carried out against conservatives such as Charlie Kirk and President Trump. It’s no surprise, then, that nearly half of all students, many of whom are conservative, reported feeling less safe to discuss their political opinions in class, common areas, or on social media.
The results of this poll are sobering, and they present a clear need for prayer. Let’s pray for a return to civility in America, and let’s pray for a complete and total end to political violence!
How are you praying about the results of this poll? Share your thoughts and prayers below.
(Excerpt from CBN. Photo Credit: Stanley Morales/Pexels)
