How the "Heckler’s Veto" Is Hurting Higher Ed

New data show disruptive campus protests erode public trust in universities. Restoring confidence will require focused education in the student communities most supportive of illiberal protest.

Over the past decade, the American public has become increasingly skeptical of higher education. Last year, for example, Gallup reported that the number of Americans with “little” or “no” confidence in higher education has tripled since 2015. While Republicans’ attitudes toward higher education have become the most negative during the last ten years (Figure 1), Gallup’s summarized its findings by pointing out that “all key subgroups are now less confident” in colleges and universities. In fact, the public’s growing cynicism about higher education has “generally been similar among different educational, racial, gender and age subgroups.” Concerningly, Gallup’s data also revealed that more than two-thirds of Americans believe higher education is headed in the “wrong direction.”

Figure 1 – The American Public’s Confidence in Higher Education

This profound erosion of trust is not limited to adults. According to Monitoring the Future (MTF), a long-running survey of American 12^th graders, the percentage of high school seniors saying colleges do a “good” or “very good” job for the country cratered between 2007 and 2023, falling from 75% to 47%. As Figure 2 shows, the decline has occurred across political and demographic lines, with young Republicans, Democrats, Independents, whites, African Americans, and Hispanics, all souring on higher education over the last 15 years.

Figure 2 – Positive Evaluations of Colleges and Universities among High School Students

This “crisis of confidence” has unfolded alongside intensifying concerns about protest and free speech on college campuses. In particular, the growing popularity of the “heckler’s veto” – attempts by an individual or group to disrupt or restrict speech through excessive noise, intimidation, or violence – among college students has subjected universities to withering public scrutiny. According to data from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression’s (FIRE) Campus Deplatforming Database, the number of “disruptive” incidents has, with the exception of a brief pause during the COVID pandemic, been rising since 2014 (Figure 3). Particularly striking is the explosion in the “heckler’s veto” during the last three years, with events labeled by FIRE as “attempted disruptions” or “substantial disruptions” of campus speaking events growing from just 3 in 2021 to 79 in 2024.

Figure 3 – Attempted Uses of the “Heckler’s Veto” on College Campuses

But correlation is not causation and, to date, there has been little empirical evidence attempting to systematically link the growing use of the “heckler’s veto” on college campuses to the public’s changing attitudes about higher education. As a result, it is unclear whether university leaders should be concerned about the trend displayed in Figure 3 and what, if anything, they should do when disruptive protests shut down speech on their campuses.

This post presents the first empirical test of whether the rising use of the “heckler’s veto” on college campuses has contributed to the erosion of public trust in higher education. Drawing on an experiment embedded in a large, nationally representative survey, I examine whether exposure to video footage of a single disruptive protest aimed at deplatforming a speaker on a college campus alters how people feel about higher education.

The results are clear and striking. Viewing even a brief, 20-second snippet of footage showing students using the “heckler’s veto” at a campus speaking event significantly worsens attitudes toward higher education. Equally important, the results show that how universities react in the wake of a disruptive protest makes little difference. Whether university leaders respond by issuing statements condemning or praising the protesters does nothing to mitigate the harm caused by exposure to images of disruptive protest. In other words, once the “heckler’s veto” is seen, the reputational damage is done. Words from university leaders fall on deaf ears.

These findings arrive at a time when university leaders are struggling to address higher education’s “crisis of confidence.” In a recent survey conducted by Inside Higher Ed, 57% of college presidents said they have been “not at all effective” in responding to the public’s declining confidence in higher education. Yet the results presented here suggest a path forward for university leaders. Colleges and universities must couple clear, politically neutral policies with robust instruction in the norms of peaceful protest. Restoring the public’s confidence in higher education will depend not on how colleges and universities respond after disruptive protests occur but on whether they prevent them from happening in the first place.

As the data presented below also shows, in order to effectively mitigate the “heckler’s veto” problem, universities will have to confront the fact that support for silencing campus speech through disruptive action is not equally distributed across student groups. Counterintuitively, the groups that have benefitted most from robust norms emphasizing the value of free speech, political tolerance, and peaceful protest – progressives and members of national racial, gender and sexual minority groups – are now the least supportive of them. Additionally, the data reveal significantly greater willingness to endorse disruptive action as a means of preventing campus speech among Ethnic and Gender Studies students than among students of any other major. If universities would like to bolster the free speech climates of their campuses and restore their good standing with the public, they will have to design interventions that take these large attitudinal disparities into account.

Colleges and universities must come to grips with the fact that disruptive protests about speech are no longer merely internal campus disputes. Increasingly, instances of the “heckler’s veto” are visible public signals that undermine the fragile legitimacy of higher education in the eyes of the American public. Because statements issued by campus leaders in the wake of disruption do little to repair the reputational damage caused by protests, the only viable strategy for colleges and universities is prevention. In practical terms, this means creating campus cultures where protest is protected (even encouraged) but does not descend into illiberal shout downs, blockades and violence.

Testing the Impact of the “Heckler’s Veto”

There’s been no shortage of commentary blaming the “free speech crisis” on college campuses to the “crisis of confidence” in higher education. Unfortunately, there’s been more speculation than hard data about this connection. Despite widespread speculation, however, empirical evidence supporting this connection has been nearly non-existent.

In an initial attempt to determine whether the growing use of the “heckler’s veto” on college campuses might explain the public’s growing cynicism about higher education, I embedded an experiment in a large (N=4,188) nationally representative survey of the American public conducted by YouGov in late 2024.¹

The primary treatment in the experiments (shown above) was a professionally produced, 30-second local news clip of real protest footage (taken from Milo Yiannopoulos’s 2017 appearance at UC Berkeley and Charles Murray’s 2017 appearance at Middlebury College) repackaged as occurring at fictional “Jefferson University.” In the clip, a news anchor explained to viewers that “a disruptive protest at Jefferson University forced the cancellation of a talk by author Steven Jones on Thursday night. While students outside the event blocked entrances, started fires and threw debris at attendees, students inside blew airhorns and shouted slogans whenever Jones spoke. At 8:15, campus police shut down the event, citing safety concerns.” In addition to a control group that did not watch this video, respondents in my experiment were randomly assigned to one of three experimental conditions connected to this video:

1. The “Video without a University Statement” Condition: Respondents assigned to this condition watched a version of the news clip that showed video of the disruptive protest but did not include a statement from the university’s president about the disruption.

2. The “Video with a University Statement Condemning Protesters” Condition: Respondents assigned to this condition watched a version of the news clip that showed video of the disruptive protest and was immediately followed by a statement from the university’s president condemning the protesters (i.e. a video including the statement “The University strongly condemned the protestor’s actions. In a statement, University President James Marshall said, “Last night’s disruptive actions are unacceptable. Throwing debris, blocking entrances, and shouting down speakers are serious violations of our Student Honor Code and antithetical to our core values of informed inquiry and the respectful exploration of diverse perspectives. The University is conducting an investigation and will hold student protestors accountable.”). This statement was modeled on actual statements issued by university leaders following campus disruptions over the last few years (e.g. the statements issued by the University of California, Berkeley in the wake of 2019 protests against Ann Coulter).

3. The “Video with a University Statement Praising Protesters” Condition: Respondents assigned to this condition watched a version of the news clip that showed video of the disruptive protest and was immediately followed by a statement from the university’s president praising the protesters (i.e. including the statement, “The University did not condemn the protestor’s actions. In a statement, University President James Marshall said, “Our campus values different ideas but we also believe in promoting an inclusive community…Thank you to the students who participated in Thursday’s event. It took bravery to stand in a challenging space. I am proud of you for demonstrating the value of free speech and the right to protest.”). This statement was also modeled on actual statements issued by university leaders following campus disruptions over the last few years (e.g. the statement issued by San Francisco State University in the wake of disruptive protests against Riley Gaines).

Immediately following exposure to this video clip, respondents were asked two questions about higher education: (1) Please tell me how much confidence you, yourself, have in higher education; and (2) Are colleges and universities having a positive or negative effect on the way things are going in the country these days? A control group was asked these questions without seeing video footage of a disruptive protest. By comparing responses to these questions across the treatment and control groups, it is possible to isolate the effect of exposure to images of the “heckler’s veto” on public attitudes toward higher education. Additionally, the design allows us to assess whether statements by university leaders (whether condemning or praising the disruptive protest) meaningfully influence those perceptions.

Figure 4 – Perceptions of Higher Education by Exposure to Videos of the “Heckler’s Veto”

Figure 4 shows variation in responses to these two questions across each of the four treatment conditions. As Figure 3 shows, exposure to video footage of the “heckler’s veto” harmed perceptions of higher education independent of whether or how universities responded. To illustrate in substantive terms, the percentage of respondents expressing “very little” confidence in higher education rose from 16.1% among respondents not viewing the video to 22.0% among those seeing any version of the video. Similarly, the percentage of respondents saying colleges and universities have a “negative effect” on “the way things are going in the country these days” increased from 43.3% among those not watching the video to 48.3% among those watching the video. In other words, simply seeing images of the “heckler’s veto” soured members of the public on universities. A presidential statement, regardless of its perspective on the protesters, did nothing to restore confidence.

Given that Republicans have become more negative in their assessments of higher education than Independents and Democrats over the last decade, we might expect the treatment effects in Figure 4 to vary by partisanship. In order to explore this possibility, my analyses included an interaction between party identification and treatment conditions. The predicted margins from these analyses are presented in Figure 5.

Figure 5 – Perceptions of Higher Education Among Partisans by Exposure to Videos of the “Heckler’s Veto”

As Figure 5 shows, perceptions of higher education in the “Control – No Video” condition are more positive than in the three video treatment conditions across all partisan groups. Although only Republicans show a consistently, statistically significant decline when exposed to the various video treatments, Democrats and Independents also show non-significant downward trends across conditions. A formal adjusted Wald test of the “treatment*party identification” interaction terms for both dependent variables revealed no evidence that treatment effects actually differ by party identification. Put less formally, exposure to the footage of the “heckler’s veto” reduced confidence in higher education, with the effect being strongest among Republicans.

Collectively, these findings challenge the widespread assumption that it is only Fox News- watching conservatives that are troubled by the growing use of the “heckler’s veto” on college campuses. In fact, the broader public, regardless of how university leaders respond, is negatively affected when it sees college students engaged in illiberal actions to stop campus speakers.

While the shifts shown in Figures 4 and 5 are relatively modest, they capture the effect of only a single exposure to a stylized incident of disruptive campus protest. In reality, the American public has been subject to a nearly relentless stream of these images in recent years. Over the past decade (Figure 3), the “heckler’s veto” has become a recurring storyline in news coverage and social media debates about higher education. The cumulative impact of this recurring exposure likely exceeds what this one experiment can measure. In other words, even small experimental effects like the ones shown in Figures 4 and 5 offer compelling evidence that the real-world explosion in the “heckler’s veto” on college campuses is playing an important role in worsening higher education’s legitimacy crisis.

What is to be Done?

The Educational Cure for the Heckler’s Veto

If the rising use of the “heckler’s veto” is contributing to higher education’s “crisis of confidence,” what can colleges and universities do to redeem themselves in the public’s eyes? The temptation for risk-averse administrators might be to eliminate the potential for reputationally damaging disruption by preemptively deplatforming controversial speakers altogether. Sadly, there’s evidence that some universities are giving in to this temptation. At the University of Southern California, for example, administrators canceled all of their scheduled commencement speakers after pro‑Palestinian social media posts by valedictorian Asna Tabassum triggered concerns about “a security threat.”

But preemptive cancellations are likely to do far more harm than good. Instead of restoring trust and confidence in colleges and universities, these cancellations risk reinforcing the damaging perception that institutions of higher education are unwilling to defend free expression. If colleges and universities hope to prevent the reputational harms caused by disruptive protests, they must teach their students how to protest in ways that are peaceful, principled and, most importantly, non-coercive.

There are already numerous models for providing this kind of education. FIRE, in partnership with New York University’s First Amendment Watch, for example, offers free orientation modules that discuss counter-speech strategies, the legal limits on disruptive action, and the difference between protest and censorship. Similarly, interested universities might follow the lead of schools like Washington University, the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, and Appalachian State University, and distribute free expression videos (describing principles and policies about campus speakers, student protests and classroom instruction) as part of their student orientation programs. Embedding these messages in orientation activities at the start of every student’s college education is likely to signal that civil protest is welcome but must be limited by rules against shout-downs, blockades, and violence.

Figure 6 - Do Disruptive Actions Increase or Decrease Support?

Students should also be educated about the ineffectiveness of illiberal political action. One study of more than 300 movements taking place since 1900, for instance, found that violent tactics repel potential supporters while non-violent ones can attract influential allies. A poll conducted after activists threw tomato soup at Van Gogh’s Sunflowers in 2022 found that 46 percent of Americans said they were less inclined to support efforts to address climate change as a result of the disruptive action (Figure 6). The message should be made plain to students: violence, intimidation, and disruption hurt the causes they claim to care most deeply about.

Targeting the Core of the “Heckler’s Veto” Problem

If these educational interventions are to succeed, they will have to pay particular attention to reaching the segments of the university community most supportive of illiberal, disruptive political action. Who are these students? Fortunately, we have good data to help us answer this question.

Every year since 2022, FIRE has conducted a large, nationwide survey of college students as part of their efforts to rank the free speech climates of American universities. The 2024 survey, for example, included 58,000 enrolled students at over 250 colleges around the country. In addition to questions about demographic characteristics (race, gender, sexual orientation, etc.), political identities (e.g. political ideology, partisanship, etc.) and areas of academic study (i.e. college majors), the FIRE survey also asked respondents “How acceptable [always, sometimes, rarely, never] would you say it is for students to engage in the following action to protest a campus speaker?”:

1. Shouting down a speaker to prevent them from speaking on campus.

2. Blocking other students from attending a campus speech.

3. Using violence to stop a campus speech.

Perhaps unsurprisingly given the data in Figure 3, the FIRE survey data shows a troubling increase in the number of college students who are supportive of illiberal attempts at limiting speech on campus. As Figure 7 shows, in 2024, over half of students (52%) said that blocking other students from attending a campus speech is at least “rarely” acceptable, up from 45% in 2023 and 37% in 2022. Even more concerning, nearly one-third of students (32%) believe that “using violence to stop a campus speech” is at least “rarely” acceptable, up from 27% in 2023 and 20% in 2022.

Figure 7 – Acceptability of Shout Downs, Blockades and Violence to Stop a Campus Speech

More importantly, FIRE’s survey data allows us to identify which types of college students are most likely to view use of the “heckler’s veto” as “acceptable” and, thus, which groups should be prioritized in speech-related educational interventions.

For ease of presentation, I used FIRE’s survey data to construct a measure of support for the entire repertoire of tactics falling under the broad umbrella of the “heckler’s veto” (i.e. shout downs, blockades and violence). Based on their responses to the three questions listed above, I classified each student in FIRE’s sample as either a “disruption-endorsing student” (i.e. someone who said it is “always,” “sometimes,” or “rarely” acceptable to use shout downs, blockades, AND violence to stop a campus speech) or a “disruption-rejecting student” (i.e. someone who said it was “never” acceptable to use shout downs, blockades OR violence to stop a campus speech). It should be pointed out here that this an extremely conservative definition of “rejection.” Indeed, even students who fully endorse shout downs and blockades would still be categorized as “disruption-rejecting” if they said “using violence” was “never” acceptable.

Figure 8 – Percent of “Disruption-Endorsing” Students by University

Overall, in 2024, 26.8% of college students were “disruption-endorsing” and 73.2% were “disruption-rejecting.” Yet, “disruption-endorsing” students are far more numerous at some campuses than at others. As Figure 8 shows, there are eight schools (Macalester College, Oberlin College, Northeastern University, University of Pittsburgh-Pittsburgh Campus, Boston University, California Institute of Technology, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, University of California-Davis) where more than 40% of students say that shout downs, blockades and using violence are ALL at least “rarely” acceptable tactics to stop a campus speech.

As Figure 8 also shows, however, there is nothing inevitable about having a student population that widely endorses use of the “heckler’s veto.” Only 6% of students at BYU and only 11% of students at Hillsdale College say that shout downs, blockades and using violence are all at least “rarely” acceptable.

Actual instances of attempted deplatforming via the “heckler’s veto” depend, of course, on much more than just how students feel about disruptive action. Some campuses regularly invite controversial figures to speak on campus (creating opportunities for students to employ the “heckler’s veto) while others do not. As a result, even schools with the largest number of “disruption-endorsing” students may never experience the “heckler’s veto.” In other words, since the opportunities for disruptive protest are unevenly distributed across institutions, student attitudes and real-world incidents of the “heckler’s veto” are poorly correlated. Nevertheless, the data in Figure 8 should prompt universities with large numbers of “disruption-endorsing” students to proactively institute programs focused on addressing their campus’s attitudinal illiberalism. Support for shout downs, blockades and violence is malleable and campuses at the top of Figure 8 should reflect on features of their educational environment that are leading so many students to endorse the “heckler’s veto.”

Figure 9 – “Disruption-Endorsing” Students by Major

It is also important for university leaders to realize that, within campuses, some groups of students are more likely than others to endorse shout downs, blockades and violence as an acceptable means of preventing campus speech. Figure 9, for example, shows differences across broad categories of academic concentration. Generally speaking, students majoring in Ethnic and Gender studies (e.g. “African American Studies,” “Ethnicity and Race Studies,” “Women’s and Gender Studies,” etc.) are significantly more likely than students from other disciplines to say that illiberal disruptions are “acceptable.” For example, in 2024, while more than half of Ethnic and Gender studies majors say that using violence is “always” (5.5%), “sometimes” (22.2%) or “rarely” (24.1%) acceptable in order to stop a speech from being delivered on campus, less than a third of Humanities, Visual and Performing Arts, STEM, Social Sciences, and “undecided” or “other” majors said violence is ever “acceptable.” As Figure 9 also shows, these numbers are trending in the wrong direction, with the percent of students qualifying as “disruption-endorsing” doubling within nearly every major since 2022.

The differences shown in Figure 9 could reflect self-selection or socialization. For example, students holding more “disruption-endorsing” attitudes may be drawn to disciplines (such as African American Studies, Women’s Studies and Chicano/Chicana Studies) that relentlessly critique existing norms, structures, and institutions. At the same time, however, the course content, pedagogical approaches, and campus subcultures associated with programs in Ethnic and Gender Studies may further legitimize disruptive protest tactics, including shout downs, blockades, and violence. Regardless of the exact nature of the causal relationship, majors with disproportionately high numbers of “disruption-endorsing” students should be prioritized in university efforts to reduce support for the “heckler’s veto.” Carefully targeted educational interventions in these departments may be especially effective in reducing embarrassing instances of disruptive protest and restoring the university’s role as a forum for open inquiry and reasoned debate.

Figure 10 – “Disruption-Endorsing” Students by Gender

Attitudes toward the “heckler’s veto” vary by more than just chosen major, however. There are also profound differences in support for shout downs, blockades and violence based on identity and ideology. Generally speaking, students who identify with historically marginalized groups are significantly more likely than students who do not to view the tactics of the “heckler’s veto” as “acceptable.” For example, nearly 60% of agender students (N=379) and almost half of genderqueer (N=705), non-binary (N=1,249) and students who were unsure about their gender identity (N=299), believe that “using violence” can “always,” “sometimes,” or “rarely” be an acceptable response to an offensive speech on campus. By contrast, only 32% of men and 29% of women share this belief (though, as Figure 10 shows, the percentage of male and female students who qualify as “disruption-endorsing” has doubled since 2022).

Figure 11 – “Disruption-Endorsing” Students by Race

Similarly, support for the “heckler’s veto” varies considerably based on racial identity (Figure 11). While non-white support for violence is relatively low overall, Asian (39.8%), Hispanic (34.8%), Black (39.9%), and Middle Eastern students (40.9%), were significantly more likely than white students (27.1%) to say that “using violence” was “always,” “sometimes” or “rarely” acceptable in 2024.

Figure 12 – “Disruption-Endorsing” Students by Sexual Orientation

The same pattern holds across sexual orientation. As Figure 12 shows, students not identifying as heterosexual express far more support for disruptive action than students identifying as heterosexual.

Figure 13 – “Disruption-Endorsing” Students by Political Ideology

Finally, political ideology appears to play a role in shaping how students view disruptive action in response to campus speech. Left-leaning students (i.e. those identifying as “Democratic Socialists” and “Liberals”) are more accepting of shout downs, blockades and “using violence” than moderate and right-leaning students (i.e. those identifying as “Conservative” and “Libertarian”). As Figure 13 shows, this ideological gap has declined slightly since 2022, with more moderate and right-leaning students embracing the “heckler’s veto” in recent years.

Figure 14 – Determinants of “Disruption Endorsing” among College Students

In addition to being correlated with support for the “heckler’s veto,” college major, gender identity, race, sexual orientation and political ideology are also likely related to each other. It is possible, therefore, that some of the relationships illustrated in the above graphs are spurious. In order to account for this possibility, Figure 14 shows the results of a multivariate logistic regression model predicting the probability of qualifying as a “heckling apologist.” More specifically, the coefficients in Figure 14 show the effect of moving from the “excluded” category of each variable to the category listed in the left-hand column of the plot. For example, the coefficients for each major (e.g. “Business,” “Humanities and Performing Acts,” “Social Sciences,” etc.) indicate the effect of majoring in one of those fields relative to majoring in “Ethnic, Gender or Area Studies.” Similarly, the coefficients for “man” and “woman” show the effect of identifying as a man or a woman relative to identifying with one of the other gender identities (i.e. “agender,” “genderqueer,” “non-binary,” “unsure”). The coefficients under the headings “Race,” Ideology,” and “Sexual Orientation,” show the effect of each category relative to “Whites,” those ideologically on the “Left,” and “Heterosexuals,” respectively. Negative coefficients indicate that individuals in the labeled category are less likely to say that shout downs, blockades and violence are ALL at least “rarely” acceptable and positive coefficients indicate that individuals in the labeled category are less likely to say these things.

Taken together, the data shown in Figures 8 through 14 demonstrate that support for the “heckler’s veto” is not randomly distributed across college campuses but, instead, reflects deeper patterns connected to social identity, political ideology and academic environment. While the multivariate regression analysis shown in Figure 14 confirms that each of these dimensions exerts an independent impact on disruption attitudes, it also underscores the complexity of addressing the problem of the “heckler’s veto.” If institutions of higher education are serious about reducing speech disruptions and restoring public trust, they must design educational interventions that reflect this complexity. This will mean focusing their efforts on the disciplines and campus communities where support for shout downs, blockades, and violence have taken hold. The success of any strategy to protect free speech on campus will ultimately depend on engaging these students directly.

From Crisis to Credibility: Rebuilding Trust in Higher Ed by Reducing Disruption

Higher education’s “crisis of confidence” has many midwives (including, but not limited to spiraling tuition costs, disappointing job‑market prospects, and partisan assaults from journalists, elected officials, and political activists). As the results presented above show, however, no accounting of the declining reputation of colleges and universities is complete without an understanding of the “free speech crisis” on America’s campuses. Viral shout downs, blockades and acts of violence in lecture halls have become one of the public’s principal lenses for viewing campus life, and, as the results shown above demonstrate, the picture Americans are receiving is corrosive. To be more precise, the experimental results discussed above clearly show that witnessing a single use of the “heckler’s veto” on a college campus significantly hurts public trust in higher education. Just as importantly, statements from university leaders alone cannot repair this damage.

Public patience with universities is running out. Even left-leaning and once-friendly voices are raising alarms about the speech problems on college campuses. Most notably, in an April 2025 forum at Hamilton College, former president Barack Obama took a strong and explicit stand against the “heckler’s veto,” arguing that “The idea of cancelling a speaker who comes to your campus, trying to shout them down and not letting them speak, even if I find their ideas obnoxious, well, not only is that not what universities should be about, that’s not what America should be about. You let them speak, and then you tell them why they’re wrong. That’s how you win the argument.”

The good news is that proactive educational programs that channel dissent into non-disruptive forms of action have a chance at reducing disruptive protest and, in the process, slowing the reputational decline of higher education. Colleges and universities should loudly and frequently remind students that, in the marketplace of ideas, persuasion beats coercion.

College students will likely always feel the impulse to protest speech they find offensive. The challenge for higher education is not to suppress that impulse but, instead, to channel it into forms of expression that uphold liberal values and protect the legitimacy of the institution itself.

1. This research was generously funded through FIRE’s Free Inquiry Grant program.