Lots of jolly news here for First Amendment fans: high school kids are, according to a new study, both uneducated about their First Amendment rights, and not all that enthusiastic about them.
Sort of.
The AP story waxes eloquent about the down side:
[W]hen told of the exact text of the First Amendment, more than one in three high school students said it goes “too far” in the rights it guarantees. Only half of the students said newspapers should be allowed to publish freely without government approval of stories. […]
When asked whether people should be allowed to express unpopular views, 97 percent of teachers and 99 percent of school principals said yes. Only 83 percent of students did.
The results reflected indifference, with almost three in four students saying they took the First Amendment for granted or didn’t know how they felt about it. It was also clear that many students do not understand what is protected by the bedrock of the Bill of Rights. Three in four students said flag burning is illegal. It’s not. About half the students said the government can restrict any indecent material on the Internet. It can’t.
To be fair, I wonder how many adults would answer the same way regarding those last two questions.
A review of the survey results paints a slightly different picture (though still troubling):
- 51% of students says that they agreed with the statement “Newspapers should be allowed to publish freely without government approval of stories.” 80% of both teachers and principals agreed with the statement, too, though only 70% of adults did (which is also mildly alarming).
- However, 58% of the students said they agreed that “Students should be allowed to report controversial issues in their student newspapers without the approval of school authorities” (vs. 39% of teachers, 25% of principals, 43% of adults).
- And 70% agreed that “Musicians should be allowed to sing songs with lyrics that others may find offensive,” versus 58% of teachers, 43% of principals, 59% of adults).
So they’re not all little budding authoritarians, they’re just most interested protection of their own forms of expression, not others. Which is both human and (especially) teen-aged.
Looking at the key findings of the study, I note this passage:
In recent years, in fact, annual surveys of adult Americans conducted by The Freedom Forum show that public support for the First Amendment is neither universal nor stable: it rises and falls during times of national crisis. In the wake of the 2001 terrorist attacks, the nation was almost evenly split on the question of whether or not the First Amendment “goes too far in the rights it guarantees.” Not until 2004 did America ‘s support for the First Amendment return to pre 9-11 levels, when it received support from only about two-thirds of the population. Even in the best of times, 30 percent of Americans feel that the First Amendment, the centuries-old cornerstone of our Bill of Rights, “goes too far.”
Which is irksome, but which indicates that the “over one third” of HS students (35%) who feel that way aren’t particularly out of the mainstream.
The survey was sponsored by a group that pushes “student media” studies (student newspapers, web pages, etc.), and the survey results seem to indicate that kids who participate in such activities tend to be more First Amendment-knowledgable and -supportive than those who don’t (or, conversely, that kids with such positions tend to pursue such activities). Programs like this, though, are increasingly pressed by costs and by school academic programs that push the Fundamentals in order to score well on tests.
Frankly, I’m in favor of school media programs, and a strong grounding in the Constitution (including the base document and all the Amendments, thank you, though the First holds a special place in my heart). But reading this survey doesn’t alarm me as much as it does some. Peering through the numbers at the actual results, it doesn’t sound like we’re raising a band of thought-crushing conformists, no matter how I’ve seen some folks express worries about how Authoritarian Police State Homeland Security Unquestioning Conservative Values or Authoritarian Politically Correct Thought Police Multi-Culti Liberal Values are doing just that.
(via Boing-Boing, QandO and a few others)
I’ve posted entries on the adult surveys in the past in which I expressed my disappointment, but not surprise, over the findings. It’s true that this has been an ongoing issue for quite some time and has yet to really become a problem per se. My concern over things like this is once one of these yahoos makes it into political office and tries to have laws passed that would restrict or remove the first amendment. It’s not like morons don’t get elected to office such as the case with Georgia State Rep. Ben Bridges who introduced a bill in his state’s legislator requiring that only facts be taught in science classes on the belief that it would outlaw the teaching of Evolution.
Oh, I consider it a problem, but a broad, societal one (though I’d be curious to see whether this is a recent change or simply an ongoing gestalt). I tend to err on the side of free expression and reasonable church/state separation every time, probably moreso than the general public.
The question to my mind was whether the way this was being spun, both in the initial report and in various commentaries I was reading, as some sign that the Republic is Doomed because Kids Don’t Like Liberty was an accurate one. I don’t think it is.