The Safe Generation

Playboy conducted a wide-ranging campus survey that exposes a fearful student body blindly marching under the banner of PC

Shortly before 7:30 a.m. on a chilly April morning in 1993, drivers began delivering bundles of student newspapers around the campus of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. When The Daily Pennsylvanian hit the pavement, six dozen members of the Black Student League were waiting. The paper had carried columns by a white student who questioned, among other things, the heroism of Martin Luther King Jr., and labeled Malcolm X a hatemonger. Before classes began that day, angry BSL members had dumped nearly all 14,000 copies of the paper in the trash. The empty racks carried a sign: "Sometimes inconvenience is worth the price. Think about it."

Fortunately, people on campus did just that. Another group of students dug through the garbage to save as many copies of the paper as they could and distributed 6000 freshly printed copies. The black students, who were scolded but not disciplined, claimed their rogue action was justified by--are you listening, George Orwell?--the First Amendment.

Penn is not the only university where the sometimes uncomfortable principle of free speech has been trampled by campus groups. Student newspapers that contained controversial material have been stolen at Penn State, Clemson, Duke, Maryland, Rochester and at least 50 other schools during the past two years. It's the latest campus craze.

The larceny of "dangerous thoughts" and the publications that carry them is part of a decade-long retreat on campus from the principle of free speech. Propelled by the desire to protect vulnerable groups, elements of the political left have launched an assault on the open expression of unpopular ideas through hate-speech codes, peer pressure and censorship.

To understand the significance of political correctness and its effects on college students, the editors of Playboy commissioned a wide-ranging opinion poll directed at the heart of the academic community. We sent representatives from a major national polling organization--Maritz Research--to 50 campuses across the U.S. The schools we chose were a mix of public and private, urban and rural, two-year and four-year. By the time the researchers had finished their survey, they had visited schools as small and varied as Avila College in Kansas City, Missouri and the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, as large as the University of Arizona and Florida State University, and as venerable as Princeton and Stanford.

At each campus, the researchers randomly recruited 15 students to provide an even mix of class year and gender. The racial split was 75 percent white and 25 percent minority. Half of the total of 749 students surveyed described themselves as moderates, a quarter as conservatives and a quarter as liberals. The students were not told that Playboy was sponsoring the survey, which touched on everything from hate speech to censorship to date rape and sexual etiquette.

To add perspective to the numbers, Playboy later sent reporters to speak with dozens more college students in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. With the raw data in hand and pages of field notes and observations, we sat down to look over the results. What we found startled and disturbed us.

Say The Right Thing

Political correctness--or, as writer Saul Bellow calls it, "free speech without debate"--seems to have infringed on one of the fundamental dynamics of college learning: Students arrive unworldly, dissect as many ideas as they can, shoot off their mouths a bit, then leave four years later embracing the theories, lessons and arguments that best fit their experiences.

But according to our poll results, as the diversity of the student body increases, so does the pressure to limit discussion of controversial subjects. Hundreds of students that Playboy surveyed and interviewed accepted the idea that they are obliged to keep everyone happy, even if this means sacrificing free speech. Nearly half supported banning the expression of racist ideas--an attitude that justifies actions such as those taken by the Black Student League at Penn. Two thirds of students said that words such as ugly, black, Miss or Oriental should not be uttered in groups because of the risk that someone might be offended. A quarter favored restrictions on slurs against homosexuals, and 18 percent, would support rules to ban hurting anyone's feelings. And in a finding that would make Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman spin in their graves, ten percent said they would censor anything that contradicted the school's stated political positions and five percent said they would censor anything that contradicted professors' beliefs. (The latter group, no doubt, gets really good grades.)

Perhaps emboldened by such an obedient student body, the fear of lawsuits and a belief that certain groups must be sheltered from abuse, many schools have attempted to regulate what is said on campus. For all their good intentions, it's not clear that hate-speech codes are even needed: Students appear to be self-regulating. While seven in ten of those we surveyed weren't sure if their schools even had rules against hate speech, almost the same number--six in ten--said they adjusted their behavior or censored their speech anyway.

"I analyze who I'm talking to and make an attempt, in effect, to stereotype them so that I don't offend them," admits Lawrence David Parker, a sophomore at Columbia College in Chicago. "For instance, we have a dance group coming in that features people in wheelchairs. How do you portray that without saying, 'This is unique'? It's confusing sometimes, because I don't come from a very politically correct environment. People didn't nitpick what I said."

Students aren't the only members of the campus community whose work and lives have been affected. Professors and others whose insensitivity once only sparked debate are now also accused of violating rights. Because our nation and our college campuses have become so diverse, and because nearly everyone--including white males--has shown an eagerness to stand and fight (and hire lawyers) over perceived insults, how can anyone guess what will offend someone pulled out of a crowd?

"I have eliminated some material from my courses. I tape all my lectures so there can be no question of what I actually said. I never tell jokes in class and I try to restrain my sense of humor," Charles Crawford, a psychology professor at a small Canadian university, wrote recently. "I encourage my women graduate students to give the lectures on the more controversial material on rape, incest and war."

Students find themselves on similar tightropes, struggling for a balance between expressing their frustrations about the society they've inherited and stifling any outbursts that might get them labeled as bigots. "Almost every student has an opinion about everything," says Arpana Gupta, a senior at UCLA. "It's just a matter of how willing you are to voice them openly, given that things probably aren't going to change and you're going to wind up getting a lot of criticism." Add another plank to the Bill of Rights: the right not to be offended.

(Apparently even being asked for an opinion is offensive to some people. Fourteen percent of the surveyed students said our anonymous written questionnaire was irrelevant, nine percent said it was too personal and four percent were outright offended--although no one was indignant enough to refuse the five bucks they were offered for their trouble after they completed the survey.)

Attempts to curtail hate speech, and to talk around ethnic, racial, sexual and gender differences, are bundled under the concept of political correctness. But even with all of the bashing that PC has received in recent years, 73 percent of students identified themselves as being politically correct. And if anyone thinks the trend is passing, it is interesting to note that more freshmen than seniors adhere to the PC doctrine. Sixty-two percent of the students polled agreed that they sometimes censored their language or adjusted their behavior because of political correctness, and slightly less than half think it has been a constructive force on their campuses.

At the same time, almost two thirds say it is all right to laugh at gender, racial or ethnic jokes. Given the high number of PC students, we can only assume they're laughing up their sleeves. The numbers of politically incorrect jokers reflect how difficult it is to live the PC lifestyle without stirring up the very conflicts PC tries to smooth over. Liberals feel the brunt of this paradox, since they invented PC and certainly face great pressure to make it work. The Maritz researchers summed it up nicely: Left-leaning students "are torn because their liberal attitude leads them to allow anything, but by being politically correct, they do not want to hurt anyone."

College students--liberal, moderate and conservative alike--probably want more than anything to be accepted, and liked, and part of the crowd, and many were changing their behavior to achieve that end. So PC may simply be a facade to avoid criticism. Seventy-four percent of respondents said that being popular was more important than being politically correct. And they were suspicious of the PC doctrine and what it has done to their campuses. Almost four in ten students said fear of appearing politically incorrect makes college life less spontaneous and fun.

Marching to an Indifferent Drummer

Whether because of the lack of mobilizing issues or a lack of spirit or from fear of offending someone who disagrees, three of every four students we asked had not attended a march or rally for any cause during the past year. Our finding was matched in an annual survey by UCLA's Higher Education Research Institute, which found this year's entering class the least politically involved since the institute began its surveys 29 years ago. Only 32 percent of 240,000 respondents thought that "keeping up with political affairs" was an important goal in life, and a mere 16 percent frequently discussed politics; both figures were all-time lows. All is quiet on the Western campus front.

Many of those who spoke with our interviewers suggested their seeming passivity should be seen as tolerance. Others questioned that explanation. "So often people are more concerned with using the right PC label rather than with doing anything to address larger problems," such as racial and gender tensions, suggests USC senior Michelle Baker.

Few issues seem to incite much passion among many students. Only civil rights, the pro-choice movement and environmental causes managed to scrape together the support of half the surveyed students, with women more likely to be involved than men. The remaining issues we brought up, including gay rights, animal rights and feminist and religious issues, were of less concern.

"The political climate has changed for people in their early 20s." says Tim Beasley, a graduate student at UCLA. "Where it used to be OK for everyone to speak out, now it's OK for only certain people. More of the 18-to 22-year-olds tend to be sensitized automatically. It's not that they're afraid to speak out. It's just that they don't want to."

There are activists on any campus, of course. A few students insist that many young people are politically aware, but just don't take to the streets as their parents did. "I'm not indifferent," says Jana Kalensky, a sophomore at Hunter College in New York. "But I'm not into the whole political-rally, mob-mentality scene." Instead, students say they or others organize performances, print zines, send e-mail or write letters. "I'm not all that confrontational." adds Greg Wegweiser, a senior drama major at New York University. "I deal with things through the plays I write and direct and what I put on the stage for people to see. That's my way of making people aware of the issues and how I feel about, them. People are a little more receptive that way." Unless, of course, someone takes offense at a performance, protests his choice of topics or confiscates his writings.

For that reason, it was perplexing to find that such a large number of students--four in ten--support the banning of controversial material from their campus bookstore. We provided each student with a list of material that has caused public debate: compact discs or tapes with violent or sexist lyrics, magazines with male or female nudity and videos with violence or nudity, and asked which, if any, they would ban from the campus bookstore. Music fared relatively well, with only 20 percent of the students saying they would restrict access among students to violent or sexist lyrics. But almost a third of the students were willing to ban any or all of the other controversial items, with women notably more willing to do so than men.

Again, students seemed conflicted. The music performed by bands such as Guns n' Roses may be sexist and violent--but what if their roommate listens to it? It becomes a battle of preferences: Do you prefer to let others make decisions about what they hear and see or do you force them to make the "right" decisions, in order to keep everyone happy? This conflict was reflected in other survey findings. Nearly a third of the students who said they opposed any campus restrictions on free speech also said they would support banning at least one of the items from the bookstore.

In a similar example of the difficulty students have with the awkward principles of free speech, 62 percent of those same respondents who earlier said they opposed any restrictions on free speech were unwilling to allow extremist groups to meet on campus. (To add to the confusion, the 25 percent who would allow such groups were split equally among liberals and conservatives.)

Consider what happened to David Irving, a British historian who has been accused of being a Nazi sympathizer. Early this year he was invited by a student group, the Free Speech Coalition, to present his views at the University of California at Berkeley, the same school where the Free Speech Movement began three decades ago. Protesters forced Irving to flee before he could utter a word, and they beat and spit on people who tried to enter the building. A college staff member who had to be rescued by campus police said that although he considered Irving a "scumbag," he still felt compelled to "confront those who would deny others free speech."

The beliefs of a majority of college students seem to run counter to that philosophy. About half the students polled thought that universities should have rules against, hate speech, and only 27 percent were against such rules. A full 67 percent were ready to limit free speech in certain situations, such as if the words were used to incite violence or express homophobic ideas, or if the words ridiculed a specific member of the student body. "I don't think free speech is an issue on campus," concludes Randall Lynch, a freshman at the University of Chicago. "If it were, I probably would have heard of it."

Don't Touch. Don't Tell.

Not surprisingly, the college students we surveyed appeared even more cautious about saying or doing the wrong thing in their sexual relations than they were among their peers on campus. Students seemed eager to have someone in authority spell out acceptable rules of engagement. Four in ten students felt that universities should have sexual conduct rules or guidelines beyond city and state laws, and this was one of the few responses agreed on across demographic and political lines. Among the students who said that their schools had a policy on sexual encounters, almost seven out of ten said they were comfortable with this. Again, the freshmen (78 percent) were the most accepting of such rules.

Since January 1993, when Antioch University implemented its sexual conduct code requiring students to get verbal consent from their partners at each level of intimacy, enrollment applications and inquiries have increased at the Yellow Springs, Ohio campus. "We've talked to students who have applied and said, 'We've heard about it and think it's neat,"' the dean of students has said.

Unless colleges go to the extreme that Antioch did, where every sexual encounter is subject to school policy, students are on their own trying to figure out what's OK. Nearly half the male students we surveyed (and almost 40 percent of the female students) expressed concern that something they might say or do would be misinterpreted. Nearly 40 percent felt that sexual behavior has become more of a political than a personal issue on campus. This is true especially among men. Says Michael Meiners, a junior at Northwestern University, "There is a feeling of powerlessness on campus" when it comes to relationships and sex.

Many students have eliminated casual sex from their lives. Forty-five percent (notably women and those under age 21) insisted they do not have intercourse without an emotional commitment. "Everybody seems to be into having very serious relationships," says Marjorie Jones, a freshman at Northwestern. "The guys don't want to date around. Maybe it's because the people I know want a long-term commitment that they're not having casual sex."

That's probably a matter of age. Junior and senior men and women still have a shot at getting lucky at a party: A lusty 61 percent of those 21 and older were ready to take a tumble without commitment. And great numbers of (concluded on page 153)Safe Generation(continued from page 78) students are accepting of interracial (87 percent approval) and homosexual (55 percent) relationships. Most surprising, 42 percent thought professor-student relationships were all right, harassment be damned.

Students acknowledged the changing rules of sex. Ninety-six percent said they could define date rape, and six in ten thought date-rape statistics were under-reported. For all of their agreement on the concept of date rape, the respondents were not willing to back up their assertions with admissions of guilt. Only two percent of students say that they may have committed date rape, while more than 20 percent of women (and four percent of men) claim to have been date-rape victims. Sixty percent said they believed that date-rape statistics were understated. Despite all that, almost 90 percent of students insist they had never pressed for sex after a partner asked that they stop. These numbers leave us with the impression that either a lot of college men are in denial--or lying--about their behavior, or that everybody is clueless about what constitutes date rape.

No wonder that both male and female students are confused. Forty-four percent of the students, including more than half of the men, said that the focus on sexual harassment has made them fear being spontaneous with someone they find attractive. "I thought I'd come to college and there would be this big dating scene," says Nishea Clark, a junior at Northwestern. "But people don't go out on dates much."

Don't be discouraged, Nishea, there's still a solid 56 percent acting on their basic instincts. In addition, women may be relaxing a bit after a difficult decade: Thirty-three percent agreed that all the attention paid to harassment has improved communication and made sexual encounters more comfortable.

Many students seem to have found a middle ground between enjoying their sexuality and expressing it aggressively in public. "Pretending that we never look at people's bodies and that we don't register that stuff is such bullshit, such a complete pose," says Christian Fennigan, a senior at New York University. "On the other hand, I don't feel that anyone has the right to grab your attention and get in your face about sex."

There seems to be a real fear of people who aren't abiding by the rules, however. "When I came here my boyfriend gave me Mace," says Marjorie Jones, the Northwestern freshman. "I felt really stupid. I was carrying a weapon and it didn't feel right at all. Everybody else thought it was kind of strange, but within three weeks about 75 percent of the girls I knew had Mace. And then I noticed that all the sophomores and juniors had it, too."

PC or not PC?

It is not exactly a revelation that many college students are unsure of their identities and beliefs. But this generation seems to respond to that uncertainty by seeking security, rather than by engaging society with any sense of turmoil, anger or passion. There were exceptions, but most students sought safety in numbers and regulations, and side-stepped confrontation and hurt feelings. Camille Paglia, the polemical author of Sexual Personae, derides that approach: "In the summer-camp mentality of American universities, the ferocity of genuine intellectual debate would just seem like spoiling everyone's fun."

Rather than being restricted by political correctness, some students say they have simply become more level-headed, more polite, more tactful. (Nearly one in five credit PC with making them more friendly.) To ensure that a public debate has any value, they argue, you have to listen as well as shout. But, as with PC, politeness can stifle debate. Charles Crawford, the professor cited earlier, points out, "We must always try to be well-bred ladies and gentlemen, but the search for truth and the transmission of knowledge is more important."

Although a quarter of the students surveyed said PC has not gone far enough, there are some signs its reign may be in decline. More than half the students (notably males) feel there has been a backlash against it. "People go out of their way to be politically correct, and it seems completely unnatural," says Megan Torrey, a freshman at USC. And Eileen Hunter, a junior at UCLA, believes that "PC has been misused by people who would rather dismiss ideas without addressing the arguments."

College has traditionally been the place where students learn to think for themselves. Consider a strong-willed grad student who attended Tulane University in the late Sixties: This rabble-rouser helped organize a protest after the school administration decided to censor several photos containing nudity from the student newspaper. Twenty-five years later, he would become a political leader who shook up another institution that many people felt had grown stagnant. Back then, however, Newt Gingrich was just another campus wiseass who had the gall to tell university officials that he and his fellow freethinkers wouldn't stand for censorship. The photos never ran, but during that first week in March 1968, Gingrich helped bring Tulane alive with debate. Nobody had to tell him about the value of free speech in our society. That spirit is gone today.