The study from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) surveyed 68,510 students across 257 colleges and universities between January 3 and June 5 of 2026 and found that 34 percent of students support using violent means to stop a campus speech, up from 20 percent in 2022. FIRE wrote that the study’s results over the past six years paint a “sobering picture,” and that the atmosphere on campuses “isn’t just cautious — it’s hostile.” FIRE added, “Students continue to show low tolerance for controversial speakers, and troublingly, more believe it’s acceptable to shout down a speaker, block access to events, or even resort to violence to silence campus speech than ever before. These attitudes have either held steady or worsened in the past year.” thepostmillennial.com