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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” for a long time now have really ceased to form students morally and are teaching resentment, teaching grievance politics, teaching violent entitlement,” he told FOX News 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.”
“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 . 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 m
