Moderates Self‑Censor Most on Campus

A new working paper using survey data from a private elite college finds that students with the most moderate views report self‑censoring more often than ideological extremes. The pattern is linked to confidence and issue salience (more confident, more extreme students speak up), while conservatives overall self‑censor more because of social‑exclusion fears and marginalized groups self‑censor less on issues that matter to them. — If true across institutions, this upends simple narratives that only ideological minorities are silenced and implies different remedies for campus free‑speech problems (targeting confidence, salience, and social‑exclusion dynamics rather than only viewpoint balance).