The Collective Claims the Classroom

The timing is crazy. I published “The Collective Eats Its Young”¹ at 6 PM on November 10th, 2026, and the New York Post published Carl Campanile’s report at 6 AM the following morning, 12 hours later.² My essay had described a child’s possible explanation for the September 11th attacks: “America must have done something wrong”. Campanile reported that 22 percent of respondents in a Buckley Institute survey agreed with the statement “America deserved September 11th”.³ My concern had acquired a companion in the morning’s news.

The Buckley Institute deserves kudos for commissioning the research and publishing its questions, results, and methodology. Carl Campanile and the New York Post deserve kudos for bringing those findings to readers on November 11th. I appreciate both contributions because my reader can examine the evidence behind my concern.

The Buckley Institute released its 2026 National Undergraduate Student Survey on October 8th, weeks before my essay.⁴ Inquire LLC surveyed 803 undergraduates from September 5th through September 14th; they were younger than 25 and enrolled full-time at four-year colleges.⁵ I see the underbelly of college indoctrination in the intimidation that students report, the disagreement that some avoid, and the permission that some respondents give themselves to silence an opponent.

The Guilt Assigned

I was 28 years old on September 11th, 2001, serving in the Massachusetts Army National Guard and driving to my real estate broker class in Waltham when the news broke across WBZ Radio 1030. My objection to the murder of individuals requires no oath of admiration for their government. The undergraduates in the Buckley Institute’s survey were infants or unborn that day.⁵

I want to understand the path that leads a young person to regard those murders as punishment that America deserved. The survey found that 22 percent agreed with the statement that America deserved September 11th.³ I won’t, however, turn the answer given by a minority into an accusation against every college student.

A country becomes the defendant, and the people murdered disappear inside its name; a passenger didn’t become responsible for America’s foreign policy by boarding an airplane. A person arriving at the World Trade Center for work didn’t acquire a nation’s guilt at the door, and Al-Qaeda’s murderers didn’t earn the right to kill by declaring a grievance.⁶ A country didn’t die that morning; people were murdered.

The Models Chosen

The Buckley Institute reported that 42 percent preferred socialism and 28 percent preferred capitalism. The previous year’s respondents had preferred capitalism, 40 percent to 36 percent. The lead for socialism is the largest in the five years that the question has been asked.⁷

The survey also asked about Cuba and the Soviet Union; a 47 percent plurality agreed that those countries offered a “better economic model” than capitalist countries such as the United States.³ Cuba is a fuckin’ shithole, and the Soviet Union isn’t accepting applications. Vladimir Lenin, the Bolshevik leader, described socialism as the first phase of communist society in “The State and Revolution”.⁸ I regard socialism as the slippery slope to communism, and Lenin’s stated progression is part of the history behind my warning. My concern reaches the authority that a collective can claim over a person’s work, property, and judgment.

The Buckley Institute also reported more support for criminalizing offensive speech among respondents who preferred socialism: 51 percent, compared with 34 percent among those who preferred capitalism.⁴ The figures describe an association, rather than proving that an economic preference causes support for censorship. I see a danger when the attraction of collective control accompanies permission to silence the person who objects.

Permission to Silence

The Buckley Institute found that 87 percent regarded the First Amendment as important and deserving of respect. The survey also found that 45 percent agreed that violence could be justified to prevent hateful expression.⁵ I can’t call a right secure when its defender reserves permission to beat an opponent into silence.

The Buckley Institute reported that 72 percent of respondents who accepted violence to stop hate speech also recognized that hate speech is constitutionally protected.⁴ The hypocrisy is jaw-dropping. I find this annulment of free speech frightening in its ignorance: a right that depends on an opponent’s approval is a permission slip.

The questionnaire also found that 40 percent agreed that offensive speech should face criminal prosecution.³ My objection in the November 10th essay¹ to the government’s preferences based on race and sex in restaurant relief⁹ rested on the same principle: a civil right belongs to the individual. The promise of protection becomes a weapon when an authority uses it to silence dissent. I won’t accept a “hate speech” label as a substitute for answering an argument from a man who’s straight and White. A person’s race or sex can’t determine the right to speak; that right belongs to every person, regardless of sexual orientation.

The questionnaire asked about the killing of Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA. A 26 percent response described his rhetoric as harmful and threatening before stating that “his words had consequences”. The statement that nobody should be killed for political beliefs drew 54 percent.³ I read the consequence answer as an invitation to make the victim answer for the killer’s act; the wording doesn’t explicitly approve murder. A political dispute grants nobody ownership of a life.

The reported support for violence against hateful expression differed by ideology: 54 percent among liberal respondents; 36 percent among moderates; and 30 percent among conservatives.⁵ My objection applies across party lines, as it did in my November 10th essay. A faction’s name can’t excuse the surrender of an individual’s rights.

Price of Disagreement

The Buckley Institute found that 54 percent reported feeling intimidated frequently or sometimes when their views differed from their professors’ views. A separate 53 percent reported that experience when disagreeing with classmates or peers.⁵ The pressure described by those students reaches beyond the person at the lectern.

The survey also found that 61 percent believed their professors made their political leanings clear through their teaching.⁵ An educator who teaches an argument owes a student room to examine its premises. I call the pressure to trade judgment for agreement indoctrination.

The Buckley Institute reported that 48 percent expressed unwillingness to become close friends with someone from another political party, and 44 percent would avoid a class taught by a professor who publicly expresses opinions that they oppose. A separate 42 percent agreed that comments about politics could harm their mental health when they disagreed with the comments.⁴ The refusal to hear disagreement can build an intellectual wall inside a world that offers more ways than ever to encounter another mind.

The Life an Education Serves

I want an education that gives a student room to question the professor, the party, and the parent. My argument belongs under the same scrutiny. A younger reader owes me no agreement.

The freedom to condemn American policy belongs beside the freedom to condemn the claim that America deserved September 11th. I’d defend a student’s right to express that claim while rejecting the judgment that it contains. A government gains no entitlement to silence the opinion that makes my argument harder to win.

Mao Zedong, the leader of the Chinese Communist Party, endorsed the Red Guards in 1966;¹⁰ his 1968 call for re-education in the countryside addressed the broader population of educated youth.¹¹ A cause can recruit the young to enforce its judgments before claiming the right to govern those recruits’ lives. I see that danger in the pressure that students report around disagreement and the willingness that some express to silence an opponent. A student who uses force to silence an opponent still answers for that choice, and an adult who teaches obedience in place of judgment has to answer for that lesson. My concern is the young life: a cause first bends it around somebody else’s ambition and throws it into the gutter when the cause has no further use for its recruit.

My daughters deserve the freedom to reject my politics; my conviction gives me no ownership of their judgment. I want their education to leave room to examine a government’s conduct without assigning its guilt to people who share a country. An institution can earn trust by teaching a student to question its authority.

A classroom has no claim on the life it helps prepare.

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Source Notes

1. Jonathan Bowen, “The Collective Eats Its Young”, November 10th, 2026, 6 PM Eastern Standard Time. The essay supplies the passage quoted here alongside the author’s September 11th recollection. The arguments concerning collectivism and education provide context for the companion; the discussion of political violence bears on the survey’s speech findings. The author’s concern for his daughters’ freedom continues in the closing section. ↩︎2 ↩︎
2. Carl Campanile, “Alarming number of college students claim US deserved 9/11: poll”, New York Post, November 11th, 2026, 6 AM Eastern Standard Time. The article links to the original topline. Its publication time is 11:00 UTC, 12 hours after the preceding essay’s 23:00 UTC publication date. The Buckley Institute released the underlying survey on October 8th, 2026. ↩︎
3. Inquire, “National Undergraduate Study: Topline Results”, prepared for the Buckley Institute, September 2026, questions 18, 26, 40, and 50. The September 11th responses were 21.8 percent agreement, 71.7 percent disagreement, and 6.5 percent unsure. The Cuba–Soviet Union item combines both examples in one comparison. The Kirk item offered three responses, with unsure available as another option; its consequence language doesn’t explicitly endorse murder. ↩︎2 ↩︎3 ↩︎4 ↩︎5 ↩︎
4. Buckley Institute, 2026 National Undergraduate Student Survey release, October 8th, 2026. The release links to the survey documents and reports subgroup comparisons. The speech-related comparisons describe associations among answers rather than causal effects. The release supplies the joint-response finding concerning respondents who accepted violence and regarded hate speech as constitutionally protected. ↩︎2 ↩︎3 ↩︎4 ↩︎
5. Rob Schmidt, Inquire, “National Undergraduate Study”, September 18th, 2026. The methodology appears on PDF page 2; pages 5, 7–9, and 18 contain the essay’s cited findings about the Constitution, classrooms, and violence. The sample came from volunteers for online surveys, with demographic stratification; it excludes students who are 25 or older, students enrolled part-time, and students at two-year colleges. The study states an estimate of error rather than the margin of sampling error conventionally obtained from a probability sample. The intimidation summary combines frequently and sometimes. The study measures respondents’ reports of views and experiences, rather than establishing indoctrination as a causal process. The September 11th age comparison uses the under-25 eligibility limit as of the September 2026 fieldwork. The comparison concerns age on the day of the attacks, without attributing a student’s present views to any particular teacher. ↩︎2 ↩︎3 ↩︎4 ↩︎5 ↩︎6 ↩︎
6. National September 11 Memorial & Museum, “9/11 FAQs”, sections describing the attacks, their perpetrators, and victims’ affiliations with workplaces and flights. The argument concerning individual responsibility and collective guilt is the author’s judgment. ↩︎
7. Inquire, 2026 historical comparison, PDF page 3. Economic preferences were 40.0 percent capitalism and 36.3 percent socialism in 2025, followed by 27.8 percent and 41.6 percent, respectively, in 2026. The annual surveys are separate samples rather than a panel tracking individual conversions. The essay’s whole percentages follow the report’s presentation. ↩︎
8. Vladimir Lenin, “The State and Revolution”, chapter 5, sections 3–4, written in 1917. Lenin identifies socialism as the first phase of communist society in his account of Karl Marx’s theory; his name for that phase is also “lower”, while the author’s slippery-slope warning remains his political judgment rather than a survey finding that every form of socialism inevitably produces communist rule. ↩︎
9. United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, Vitolo v. Guzman, May 27th, 2021. The court granted an injunction pending appeal against preferences based on race and sex in processing Antonio Vitolo’s application to the Restaurant Revitalization Fund; the ruling left the preference for veterans intact. The opinion identifies Vitolo as White and his wife as Hispanic, without establishing his sexual orientation. The case concerns government aid; it supplies no finding about hate-speech labeling or hate-speech enforcement. ↩︎
10. Mao Zedong, “A Letter to the Red Guards of Tsinghua University Middle School”, August 1st, 1966, English translation. The letter expresses Mao’s support for the students’ rebellion against designated reactionaries in the Cultural Revolution; his endorsement extends to people who are elsewhere in China and take a similar position. ↩︎
11. Mao Zedong, “Directives Regarding Cultural Revolution”, entry for December 22nd, 1968, English translation. The directive calls for educated youth to go to the countryside for re-education and urges parents to send their children. The directive addresses educated youth broadly, rather than documenting the fate of every Red Guard. The comparison with the survey is the author’s warning. ↩︎