More than one in five American college students say the United States deserved the September 11 terrorist attacks, according to a new national survey released this month.
Quick Take
- The Buckley Institute’s 2026 survey found 22% of American undergraduates believe America deserved 9/11.
- 45% of students said physical violence can be justified to stop what they view as hate speech, matching a record high.
- Inquire LLC surveyed 803 American undergraduates between September 5 and 14, 2026.
- Support for both statements was notably higher among students who identify as liberal.
What The New Survey Actually Found
The Buckley Institute published its 2026 National Undergraduate Student Survey on October 8, reporting that 22% of American undergraduates believe the country deserved the September 11 attacks. The institute also found that 45% of students agree physical violence can be justified to stop what they see as hate speech. Both numbers mark troubling highs for a survey the group has run for over a decade.
The firm Inquire LLC conducted the fieldwork, polling 803 American undergraduates over a ten-day window in September 2026. The Buckley Institute has tracked student attitudes on free speech, political violence, and campus culture for years, giving this year’s results a historical baseline for comparison.
A Troubling Trend, Not A One-Time Blip
The violence question is not new. Buckley’s 2023 survey found 45% of students agreed physical violence could be justified to prevent hate speech or racially charged comments. That number dropped to 39% in 2025 before climbing right back to 45% this year. The pattern suggests a real and growing comfort with political violence among young Americans, not a fluke tied to one question’s phrasing.
The 2026 release also breaks the numbers down by political identity, and the gap is wide. Among students who call themselves liberal, 54% said violence could be justified to stop hate speech, compared to 36% of moderates and 30% of conservatives. On the 9/11 question, 28% of liberal students said America deserved the attacks. These are not fringe numbers buried in a subgroup. They represent a majority-adjacent share of one entire wing of the political spectrum.
How The Two Beliefs Connect
Perhaps the most revealing figure in the whole release is the overlap between the two attitudes. Of students who said violence could be justified against hate speech, 41% also said America deserved September 11. That overlap suggests a shared worldview rather than two unrelated opinions, one where moral judgments about violence and national guilt travel together in the minds of a meaningful slice of today’s campus population.
A conservative student group, the Buckley Institute has run this survey for over a decade specifically to track shifts like these, and its ideological identity has drawn scrutiny from some corners of the press. That label does not change the arithmetic. A sample of 803 students answering the same question Buckley has asked for years is a legitimate data point, regardless of who funds the pollster.
Why Question Wording Still Matters
Survey researchers have long shown that small changes in question wording can shift reported attitudes by double digits on sensitive political topics. That reality does not undercut this result, but it is worth remembering when comparing year-to-year figures or similar surveys from other pollsters, since no two questionnaires phrase a loaded topic like 9/11 in exactly the same way.
A separate summary of the same survey reported slightly different numbers, 21% and 47% instead of 22% and 45%, which the Buckley Institute attributes to rounding differences in unweighted versus weighted calculations. Small as that gap is, it’s a reminder that headline numbers deserve a second look even when the underlying finding, a startling rise in sympathy for anti-American violence, is not in dispute.
What This Means For Parents And Taxpayers
Families spending tens of thousands of dollars a year on tuition have every reason to ask what their children are being taught, and by whom. A fifth of undergraduates saying America “deserved” a terrorist attack that killed nearly 3,000 people is not a statistic to shrug off as campus edginess. It reflects a broader cultural drift that conservative parents, taxpayers, and lawmakers have flagged for years, and this survey gives that concern fresh, measurable weight.
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A nationwide survey of undergraduate students conducted by Yale University’s Buckley Institute, a conservative student group, found that the popularity of socialism is… pic.twitter.com/nuZBmCX1gr
— Owen Gregorian (@OwenGregorian) October 9, 2026
The Buckley Institute says it plans to continue running this survey annually, which means next year’s results will show whether 2026 was a peak or the start of a longer climb. Either way, the numbers released this month give parents, educators, and policymakers a concrete starting point for a conversation that has mostly been fought with anecdotes until now.
Sources:
redstate.com, buckleyinstitute.com, ground.news, tribe.peakprosperity.com
