FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

CALGARY: As Canadian university students arrive back to campus, a new study from the Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy explores the degree to which students are willing to express their views in the classroom. Freedom of Expression on Campus: A Survey of Students’ Perceptions of Free Speech at Canadian Universities asked 760 students across 34 universities about their comfort or reluctance in speaking up and giving their views on five potentially controversial issues: politics, religion, race, gender, and sexual orientation. 

The following eight insights best summarize the key findings. Across Canada: 

1. On non-controversial issues, 93.4 percent of university students are comfortable speaking up and giving their views in a university classroom. 

2. However, less than one-quarter (23.6%) feel free on all five controversial topics to honestly discuss their perspectives. 

3. The students most comfortable sharing their views at Canadian universities identify as follows: liberal, secular, racialized, homosexual, and/or gender-nonconforming. Merely 0.4 percent—less than half of 1 percent—of students match all five. Moreover, each cohort in isolation excludes the majority of students. 

4. More than two-thirds of students who identify as politically moderate are concerned that someone would file a formal complaint and that professors would lower their grades, if their moderate views were expressed on campus. 

5. Fully 85 percent of students who identify politically as “very conservative” fear a lower grade for expressing their political views. 

6. More than three in four “very liberal” students are not at all concerned that sharing their political views would result in a formal complaint. 

7. Despite religious students outnumbering non-religious students two to one, only the latter is comfortable giving their honest views on religion in class discussions.  

8. Daily abuse on campus is the experience of at least 15 percent of Jewish students—just for being Jewish. Not a single atheist nor agnostic participant reported daily mistreatment for their views on faith and religion.  Just 2.6 percent of racialized students experience racism daily.  

“There has long been a presumption that university classrooms organically support open inquiry and the exchange of ideas,” says co-author Dr. Martin Mrazik, neuroscientist and professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Alberta. “Our findings suggest otherwise. The data reveal that students are remaining silent in the classroom for fear of consequences, be they social or academic.” 

Download the full report at: https://aristotlefoundation.org/study/freedom-of-expression-on-campus-a-survey-of-students-perceptions-of-free-speech-at-canadian-universities/

To arrange for an author interview, please note the contact below.   

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MEDIA CONTACT TO ARRANGE INTERVIEWS   

Ava Peacock 

Executive Coordinator 

Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy      

Email: media@aristotlefoundation.org