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It was this past Monday evening, May 12, when I was at a house deep in the countryside of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, surrounded by grazing horses and cows. I was attending my monthly Catholic group dinner, a tradition I’d joined through the local church. Each month, we gather at a different home, each of us bringing a dish or two, with the host providing the main course. (I hosted the first dinner last year; I made sweet hot mustard chicken thighs and brown sugar glazed carrots.) As we chatted over plates of lasagna and homemade bread, the conversation turned to work. “What do you do exactly?” someone asked. “What publication do you write for?”
Usually, I’m vocal—unafraid to share my opinions. But in that moment, I hesitated.
Chapel Hill is a liberal bastion—tattered Harris-Walz signs waste away in my neighbors’ yards, LGBTQ flags adorn every coffee shop and food truck, and a local grandma once told me she was disappointed her son moved to Vermont, fearing her grandchild’s school would lack racial diversity. Would I dodge, saying simply that I edit higher education articles, or unleash my sky is falling rant about the state of higher education?
[RELATED: Censorship in U.S. School Libraries: What Now for the Bible?]
I chose the latter, revealing I’m the managing editor of Minding the Campus, critiquing the leftist takeover of universities. I argued that campuses have been overtaken by activists masquerading as intellectuals, indoctrinating students to mold a leftist utopia. To my shock, everyone nodded along—based conservatives, all. I guess I should’ve known: where cows and horses roam, conservatives are right at home.
But that initial hesitation stuck with me. Why did I, someone who puts myself at significant professional risk daily, feel the need to pause? The answer, I realized, lies in the long shadow cast by our universities. College has broken our society.
American campuses are not bastions of free inquiry; they are ground zero for a culture of censorship that reverberates far beyond graduation. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) reported in late 2023 that over one million students were investigated or punished for their speech. This isn’t just about a few overzealous administrators; it’s a systemic chokehold on open discourse. And this censorship doesn’t end at the campus gates. Graduates carry that fear into the workforce and society at large.
Consider the Reddit user Buckman2121 responding to the question, “Do you fear job loss or hide your conservative views from your employer?” He wrote, he is sure that his conservative views, if expressed, would lead to complaints against him at work.
“I don’t try and put any bumper stickers on my car regarding my political opinions. But someone of the far left has no qualms or fears. I don’t see a single anti-abortion or pro-2A sticker on staff cars in the staff parking lot,” he writes. “But left sided slogans and the like? They abound. And from my experience … it’s not the right that likes to be a Karen regarding such things. So I don’t bother trying.” (As defined by the Urban Dictionary, a Karen is a “Middle aged woman, typically blonde, [whom] makes solutions to others’ problems an inconvenience to her although she isn’t even remotely affected.)
This is the same fear that silences students on campus—fear of social ostracism, professional repercussions, or being labeled a “problem.” And this culture of intolerance is incubated in universities. Practices like affinity graduations, where students are segregated by race, gender, or some other identity, reinforce tribalism over unity—and these segregated graduations are still taking place in spite of anti-discrimination orders being in effect.
The result? A society where college-educated people can’t handle opposing views.
College-educated liberal women, for example, are the most likely to end friendships over political differences, with 33 percent admitting they’ve cut ties due to ideological disagreements. I’ve felt this burn myself—a former female liberal friend cut ties with me over the pieces I publish on Minding the Campus. In contrast, those without college degrees are the ones who are less insular, more willing to tolerate diverse perspectives, and maintain friendships across educational and socioeconomic lines.
[Related: Academic Freedom and Self-Censorship]
Isn’t it striking that the college-educated are the ones less capable of navigating a pluralistic world?
The college-educated enter workplaces, friendships, and communities primed to view disagreement as a threat rather than an opportunity for growth or truth-seeking. The Reddit user’s fear of displaying a pro-2A sticker isn’t just about avoiding a workplace complaint; it’s a symptom of campus life psychologically priming students to believe that only leftist views are acceptable. My own hesitation at that dinner table—a Catholic dinner, nonetheless—is simply evidence of that woke shadow cast beyond the campus.
If even I—a writer who tackles these issues head-on—pause to weigh the social cost of sharing my actual opinion, what hope is there for open dialogue?
Universities must become incubators of debate, so that we all hatch fearless in expressing our views. Until campuses do so, the censorship that begins there will erode our ability to coexist with those who think differently in society at large.
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Image by Александр Ланевский on Adobe Stock; Asset ID#: 634772990
