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A new survey found that close to half of undergraduate students surveyed believe physical violence can be justified to stop “hate speech,” as one university president warns that higher education has “lost its way.”
In the Buckley Institute’s 2026 National Undergraduate Student Survey, 45% of students said violence can be justified to stop what they deem to be hate speech. This includes 54% of liberals, 36% of moderates and 30% of conservatives.
The study also found that 46% of students support shout downs and 40% believe that offensive speech should be subject to criminal prosecution. Additionally, 42% said they would rather live under a socialist system, compared with 28% who chose a capitalist system, and 22% said the U.S. deserved the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Cornerstone University President Dr. Gerson Moreno-Riaño characterized the findings as more of a “moral formation issue” than a matter of free speech, warning that students have developed a “violent entitlement.”
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The Department of Education (ED) is being urged to take action to protect students from political violence on college campuses. (Getty Images)
“American colleges and universities for a long time now have really ceased to form students morally and are teaching resentment, teaching grievance politics, teaching violent entitlement,” he told Digital. “So when graduates leave these universities, they leave with that. They’re not leaving with a moral formation of their hearts, their minds, their lives. They’re leaving with resentment.”
Moreno-Riaño said that entitlement and resentment are among the reasons why many employers are concerned about the value of a degree.
“It’s not just what some will say are worthless degrees. It’s also what’s behind the degree. Individuals who have been taught to resent, not to reason, not to deliberate, not to have deep conversations with those with whom they disagree,” he said.
“Rather, it’s grievance, anger, violence, entitlement, and then violent action against it. And that to me is a significant problem. Again, not a free speech issue. It’s really about how moral education in higher ed has lost its way. We’re training people to be grieved, angry, entitled, violent. And that does not bode well for our democracy and our republic,” he continued.
Moreno-Riaño, who has led the private Christian university in Grand Rapids, Michigan, since 2021, emphasized that higher ed has “lost its way” in the U.S. for decades and has become “godless.”
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators hold a mock trial against the University of Michigan’s Board of Regents on the university campus in Ann Arbor, Mich., on April 21, 2025. (Jeff Kowalsky/AFP via Getty Images)
“When there is no moral compass in higher ed, there’s a vacuum, and what fills it? Ideologies, communism, socialism, grievance, culture. That’s what’s happened, and it’s been happening for years,” he said. “Not only that, there’s an anti-history bent in higher ed. When you think about today’s young students not really knowing the evils of communism, the evils of socialism, and believing it’s inspirational, that demonstrates just the moral bankruptcy, but also the academic bankruptcy of these institutions.”
Moreno-Riaño argued that some employers may increasingly question the value of hiring college graduates and instead consider training workers directly out of high school.
Moreno-Riaño argued that employers are increasingly concerned about “worthless degrees” that do not prepare the workforce to tackle complicated problems, as well as the ideological bent of many recent college graduates. He warned that many colleges and universities are preparing “socialists and Marxists” who want entitlement and to “destroy the system” rather than “build it, make it, refine it and improve it.”
“I think what’s happening is that employers are seeing this and many employers are saying, maybe we should train our own people or maybe we should go into the high schools directly and educate the future at the high school level and forget colleges altogether, because colleges are morally bankrupting our future,” Moreno-Riaño said.
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People participate in a protest organized by Columbia University students and professors against U.S. President Donald J. Trump’s immigration policies and to demand that the school establish itself as a sanctuary campus, in New York City, Feb. 5, 2026. (Amr Alfiky/Reuters)
“I think that’s what’s happening. And if you combine that with artificial intelligence, you have sharp minds without a moral compass. That’s a very dangerous thing because a sharp mind without a moral compass is a weapon looking for a target,” he continued.
“For a democracy, we need individuals who can reason, who can deliberate, who can speak with those with whom they disagree and not seek violent action against them, but think deeply about what they’re saying, reconsider positions, pursue what is good and with courage. If we don’t do that, then we’re in trouble. And I think the workplace and employers are seeing that and want to shift that in a different direction,” he added.
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Moreno-Riaño stressed that American higher education “has to shift,” saying it needs to “take moral formation seriously and not be grounded in entitlement and grievance culture.”
The Buckley Institute survey, conducted by Inquire LLC, included 803 full-time undergraduate students under age 25 attending four-year public or private colleges and universities. Respondents completed the online survey between Sept. 5 and Sept. 14.
