Last week, FIRE released results from April’s National Speech Index, a quarterly poll designed to track Americans’ changing attitudes and beliefs about free speech. The latest iteration sampled 1,000 Americans from April 9 through April 17, 2026, asking how acceptable they find various protest tactics in response to a speech in their community.
Notably, the average American opposes censorship far more than college students in this country. Most Americans reject overtly violent censorship tactics. In fact, only 18% say it’s at least rarely acceptable to use violence to stop a speaker, compared to 33% of college undergraduates — and 27% last fall despite the murder of Charlie Kirk weeks before.
The new NSI data also shows liberals are more accepting than conservatives of shouting down speakers or blocking them. Very liberal Americans are also more accepting of shouting down speakers than moderate Americans.
There’s no significant difference when it comes to using violence to stop a speech, but a lot of Americans support such tactics and that support has remained relatively unchanged over the past two years, despite multiple assassination attempts against President Trump, an assassination attempt against Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, and the assassinations of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson and Charlie Kirk.
The NSI also asked Americans how acceptable it is to use legal protest tactics that are fully protected by the First Amendment, such as heckling the speaker before they deliver their remarks, silently holding up protest signs during the speech, or peacefully protesting outside the speech.
First, some good news. Almost no American surveyed, regardless of their ideological views, said that it is ever unacceptable to peacefully protest outside the speech. That said, significantly more liberals were accepting of peaceful protest than their moderate and conservative counterparts — but not their very conservative counterparts. If nothing else, these findings show that Lizardman’s Constant, which says about 4% of any survey will give bizarre or insincere results, is alive and well.
Yet, when it comes to other protected forms of protest, very liberal and liberal Americans were significantly more supportive of their use than moderate, conservative, or very conservative Americans. Just 4% of very liberal Americans surveyed, and just 6% of liberals, said that it was “never” acceptable to attend a speech and silently hold up a protest sign, compared to 9% of moderates, 12% of conservatives, and 18% of very conservative Americans.
Heckling a speaker before their remarks was less popular. Most moderates (52%), conservatives (58%), and very conservative respondents (62%) said this was “never” acceptable. But only 35% of liberals and 22% of very liberal Americans agree. And liberals are much more likely to say heckling before remarks is “never” acceptable compared to very liberal Americans. Simply put, the more you stand to the left, the less likely you are to oppose this form of protest.
Taken together, these results point to a clear pattern: liberals are generally more accepting of the protest tactics we asked about, including both protected forms of protest and tactics that can interfere with other people’s expressive rights.
They are more supportive of peaceful protest, silent sign-holding, and heckling a speaker before their remarks. But they are also more accepting of shouting down speakers and blocking others from entering speaking events. And these two types of tactics should not be treated as interchangeable.
In other words, liberals seem to support all forms of protest, even illegal ones, whereas conservatives are more likely to oppose protest tactics, even some protected ones. But a healthy culture of free speech requires defending the right to protest while drawing a firm distinction between dissent that adds to public debate and dissent that shuts it down. Thankfully, that line is clearly drawn by the legal contours of the First Amendment.
 | A guest post by
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The conclusion I would draw here is that conservatives are far more likely to let people hear speech they want, unimpeded, without disruption.
It’s also unclear what “illegal protest” means here. Except for use of violence to stop a speech, none of these things are strictly illegal. Heckling, shouting down a speaker, and blocking entry are *illiberal* but not necessarily illegal.
In far too many cases it appears alleged "elite" institutions in particular are indoctrinating students to be just another woke brick in the wall. Times have certainly changed since that song came out 45 years ago.