A number of posts have discussed the politics of protest. The anti-Israel protests flopped with the general public in part because they were an elite activity.
Ten months after pro-Palestinian encampments sprang up across U.S. college campuses, sparking backlash from politicians, university leaders and pro-Israel students and faculty, the public is still extremely critical of student protests, according to new research conducted by the Center for Applied Research in Education at the University of Southern California.
Conducted from October to December 2024, the survey asked 1,857 adults whether they thought certain student “free speech actions,” including criticizing their universities online, protesting world events by walking out of class or occupying campus buildings, were always, sometimes or never appropriate. More than half of respondents said several of the examples were never appropriate: leaving protest messages on property, shouting down speakers, occupying buildings in protest and disrupting graduation, which was the least popular protest action, with about eight in 10 people saying it was never appropriate.
Even actions like criticizing their university on social media were relatively unpopular, with only 13 percent of respondents saying it’s always appropriate to do so and 38 percent saying it’s never appropriate.
Respondents were far more likely to approve of universities’ steps to stop protests, with 86 percent saying it was sometimes or always OK for police to arrest students who were breaking the law. Only slightly fewer, 79 percent, said it would be OK for police to break up a student protest—and the question didn’t even specify whether or not laws were broken.
Over all, every example of an institution’s response to protests received a higher approval rating than any example of a protest action.
