BY JOHN K. WILSON
I am often skeptical of the importance of surveying students about the First Amendment. “The First Amendment on Campus 2020 Report: College Students’ Views of Free Expression,” a new report just released this week of a survey in late 2019 by Gallup and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation (in partnership with the Charles Koch Foundation and the Stanton Foundation), provides a few interesting insights but still suffers from many of those flaws. Many of these surveys can give misleading results in their approach to the issue by depicting college students as more repressive than other groups. These surveys also tend to vastly inflate the power of students. The truth is that it doesn’t matter much what students think about free speech because they have almost no power on campus; if you want to understand campus censorship, you need to look at campus policies and the people who implement them, rather than the all-too-common trope of imagining that repressive students are the ones to blame.
Sadly, the report tries to make the usual move of depicting college students as ignorant of what the First Amendment means, and in doing so it makes a very embarrassing mistake: “72% of students incorrectly believe a professional athlete protesting the national anthem is a protected form of expression.” This is completely wrong. Kneeling in protest of the national anthem is protected speech, and you cannot be arrested for it. Of course, you may run the risk of losing your job, but that’s because private employers are not covered by the First Amendment, not because protesting the national anthem itself is unprotected by the First Amendment.
The other example in the report of “unprotected” expression was child pornography, which is clearly different than protesting the national anthem. Both might get you fired if you’re a professional athlete, but only child porn will get you imprisoned. By contrast, one of the examples of “protected” expression in the study was “hate speech.” Once again, the survey was wrong, because some forms of “hate speech” (such as threats or harassment) actually are unprotected speech, a point that Nadine Strossen makes in her recent book, Hate. In reality, if you are a professional athlete, you are probably more likely to be fired for hate speech than for protesting the national anthem (despite Donald Trump’s wishes otherwise), and you are much more likely to be arrested for hate speech than for an anthem protest. So it makes no sense to claim that “hate speech” is protected and kneeling is unprotected expression, and then try to smear students as ignorant.
The report’s incorrect understanding of the kneeling question (and even the hate speech question) make all of its analysis about the lack of knowledge students have about the First Amendment entirely worthless.
Poorly-worded questions make it difficult to interpret some other important survey items, while providing easily distorted headlines such as: “Safe spacers: 75 PERCENT of US college students want ‘threatening’ ideas & conversations curbed on campus – poll.” In fact, 78% of students supported campus “safe spaces,” but the question broadly defined them as including places “free from threatening actions,” which it is certainly not unreasonable for anyone to want. FIRE noted that 81% of students supported free speech zones, but I think that was because the ambiguous question was worded to make it sound like these zones could protect free speech: “Establishing a free-speech zone, a designated area of campus in which protesting or distributing literature is permitted, usually with pre-approval.” To someone unfamiliar with the term, if the alternative is censorship, then a free speech zone sounds like it expands free expression.
The wording of other questions makes it difficult to fully assess the meaning of other results in the survey. 58% of students think most expression and discussion of political or social ideas among students at their college takes place “online through social media” rather than “face-to-face on campus in classrooms and public areas.” There’s a slight problem here–because the idea of personal conversations is omitted from the question (only public areas, classrooms, or online are mentioned as possibilities), this survey result overstates the importance of social media. Still, it’s a dramatic number, especially since classrooms and public events are supposed to be designed to discuss political ideas. Ironically, one reason why social media may have been selected by most students is because the conservative attacks on “politicized” courses are misguided and political or social ideas are rarely discussed in most college classes.
Another important finding: College students are much more likely to think that their professors (62%) do a good job of “seeking out and listening to” differing viewpoints than their parents do (48%), or their fellow students (45%), or all Americans (17%). That indicates professors are generally encouraging different viewpoints in their classes.
In response to “The First Amendment protects people like me,” only 40% of Democrats and 54% of Republicans strongly agree. Male students are much more likely than females to agree strongly (55% vs. 39%) that the First Amendment protects them. Many more white students agree strongly (53%) than do black (25%) or Hispanic students (39%). This is one area where we need to convince students that the First Amendment in fact protects them (and do a better job of making sure that happens), and tell the ongoing stories of how women, minorities, and leftists have used the First Amendment and the threat that censorship poses to them.
The belief on the left that the First Amendment doesn’t protect people like them helps explain why those on the left are more likely to reject the First Amendment and support censorship: “If you had to choose, do you think it is more important for colleges to protect students by prohibiting speech they may find offensive or biased, or allow students to be exposed to all types of speech even if they may find it offensive or biased?” 26% of Democrats but only 10% of Republicans supported prohibiting some speech.
That skepticism about free speech extends to widespread support for censoring hate speech and banning offensive costumes. Yet when asked to support free speech, there is broad agreement among students, even when the symbol of free speech is really a threat to it. By a 58-41 percentage-point margin, college students favor the federal government being able to deny federal funds to colleges if the government does not believe the college is adequately protecting free speech rights on campus. This is an extremely disturbing result, since Donald Trump’s Executive Order threatening to do so represents a threat to academic freedom.
The willingness of today’s students to embrace government or administrative control is a disturbing sign of their trust in authority, whether it is claiming to protect or infringe upon free speech.
The survey results have a few interesting results about the changes since the 2016 and 2017 editions of this survey. More students today say it is “always” or “sometimes” acceptable for students to deny the news media access to cover campus protests or rallies (48%, up from 39% in 2017), indicating a growing suspicion of the press. In “Thinking generally about how people interact on social media,” the belief that “dialogue is usually civil” has dropped from 41% in 2016 to 29% in 2019. And there is a lot of concern by students that fear of criticism on social media is silencing many people. 38% of college students (up dramatically from 25% in 2017) say they have felt uncomfortable on campus because of something someone said in public that referred to their gender, race, ethnicity or sexual orientation, whether or not it was directed at them. 44% of Asians, 41% of blacks, 41% of females and 42% of Democratic students have felt uncomfortable on campus because of things they have heard.
The survey also asked, “Have you ever, personally, felt unsafe on campus because of something someone said in reference to things such as your race, ethnicity, religion, gender or sexual orientation, whether or not it was directed at you?” 14% of Democrats but only 6% of Republicans have felt unsafe for these reasons. Unfortunately, the question didn’t ask about feeling unsafe about political comments (and it can’t reveal whether these student fears are rational), so it may not fully reflect what students experience, but it does run contrary to the idea that Republicans are the victimized minority who are threatened on campus. However, it is hard to know if an exaggerated sense of what makes you feel “unsafe” is responsible.
The report also identified some changes in student support for colleges to restrict free speech from 2016 to 2019, and in many cases this reflected a growing partisan divide. Those supporting restrictions on “using slurs and other language on campus that is intentionally offensive to certain groups” increased for Democrats from 77% in 2016 to 87% in 2019, while Republican support dropped from 65% in 2016 to 62% in 2019.
For bans on “Wearing costumes that stereotype certain racial or ethnic groups,” Democrat support increased from 72% in 2016 to 82% in 2019, while Republican support dropped from 56% in 2016 to 50% in 2019. Other aspects of the partisan divide included the question on restrictions for “Expressing political views that are upsetting or offensive to certain groups,” where 32% of Democrats and 11% of Republicans support censorship.
Belief in one’s own silencing is a common value. Women, men, whites, black, and Hispanics all think that they are less able to speak freely than other gender or racial groups. 98% of conservatives think that blacks can express themselves freely on campus, but only 79% think whites can. 97% of liberals think that whites can express themselves freely, but only 87% think blacks can.
Even as many U.S. college students believe their campus climate deters students from speaking their minds, the majority (61%) indicate they personally feel comfortable voicing disagreement with ideas expressed by their instructors or other students in class. However, only 20% say they are “very comfortable” doing so.
There are many results in the Knight survey that deserve attention, despite its flaws. Primarily, it reflects strong commitment in theory to free speech and serious doubt when it’s speech that offends you. The task for advocates of free expression is to convince students that free speech needs to be more than just a slogan, it needs to be principle embraced even for those who disagree with you.
This is an important topic, and a good write-up, but it seems to be mixing as few different things all together and is perhaps thereby a bit confusing. There is much to consider over survey methods, for example, but I’ll defer. I do partly agree with his statement that “The truth is that it doesn’t matter much what students think about free speech because they have almost no power on campus; if you want to understand campus censorship, you need to look at campus policies and the people who implement them, rather than the all-too-common trope of imagining that repressive students are the ones to blame.”
Yes, indeed. The “Chicago Principles” are an example (my many op-eds on this issue are in the public domain, including the Wall Street Journal), which appear in a casual reading to be about ratifying broad speech rights, when in fact as you dig deeper into the Articles, is an effective ex ante warrant served on students (and others) threatening sanction and punishment–in a bizarre escalation formula–if one is found in violation of the university’s particular interpretation of acceptable behavior. It seeks to suppress the student’s instinct to speak out. This instinct to revolt is vital in many circumstances. Say, for example, that a Middle East war criminal is invited to campus to speak (they are). Should student’s merely sit quietly, raise their hands and obey Robert’s Rules of Order?
Otherwise,
“The willingness of today’s students to embrace government or administrative control is a disturbing sign of their trust in authority, whether it is claiming to protect or infringe upon free speech.”
Quite so. This is a long discussion as to why, but one source is the prior administration and its DCL letter and general radicalization of XI and IX. In both current DoE new guidelines on Title IX, and Trump’s EO tied to funding, they are responsive to Obama era special interest influence on higher education. Obama, and the DNC and its backers, really mendaciously manipulated campus young adults. The “community organizer” whipped up much agitation, and false hope and trust in the State. The current covid hysteria and campus manipulation, is not unrelated in its origins.
Re.: “That skepticism about free speech extends to widespread support for censoring hate speech and banning offensive costumes.”
First of all, there is NO SUCH LEGAL ENTITY as “hate speech.” The Supreme Court (SCOTUS) has ruled on this at least three times. You may say that doesn’t matter. Well, it does if you’re talking about the FIRST AMENDMENT, which is the LAW of the land.
Then you have the matter of what actually constitutes “offensive” speech — and wardrobe. (A bevy of black students called out white females who wore hoop earrings as cultural appropriators, little realizing that those earrings date back to ancient Egypt.
And does use of the word “hood” (urban neighborhood) in a classroom constitute a “MICRO-aggression” that could cause an adjunct Full Professor to lose his position at CCNY? Read this:
https://www.academia.edu/23593134/A_Leftist_Critique_of_Political_Correctness_Gone_Amok_–_Revised_and_Updated
To suggest that the author is advocating the ideas you critique is ill advised.
There is a fundamental difference between a description of students’ attitudes toward the First Amendment based on the interpretation of poll data–which is what the author provides–and advocacy for or promotion of those same attitudes.
Nowhere did the author state that hate speech is a legal entity, nor did he claim, or suggest, or imply, that the First Amendment was anything but the “law of the land.”
If you wish to register disagreement with certain ideas which have been described here, and which you feel are a threat to free speech or to the proper interpretation of the First Amendment, you would almost certainly be infinitely better served by going to the students who hold such ideas, instead of rebuking the person who is reporting on the existence of those ideas.
Wulf Nesthead seems to have missed the point of my critique, which was based on the fact that the First Amendment is not only “the law of the land” but also a cherished American — and human — value, at least to me — and whoever wrote the quote usually (wrongly) attributed to Voltaire: “I MAY DISAPPROVE OF WHAT YOU SAY, BUT I WILL DEFEND TO THE DEATH YOUR RIGHT TO SAY IT.”
I subscribe to that premise, but apparently a high percentage of today’s students do not.There’s another famous maxim that I first heard from my mother: “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words wioll never harm me.”
If Wulf N. wants to disagree with those two famous quotes, I’d like to hear about it.
Incidentally, nowhere did I disparage or “rebuke” ” the person who is reporting on the existence of those ideas.” I NEVER engage in ad hominem attacks, even when provoked by Wulf who tells me that I was “ill-advised.” In this case, I advised MYSELF to make the statements I made — and I stand by them.
Finally, Wulf made no mention of the link I provided, which is the basis for my revised way of thinking about “hate speech” and MICRO-aggressions. I remain a Marxist who has supported minority causes for my entire life, but I also happen to believe in Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom — almost without any limitations. But I lost a job over someone’s intolerance of MY Free Speech (and misinterpreted what I said to boot!) As Justice Brandeis famously said, “If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence. Only an emergency can justify repression.”
Anyone disagree with any of my three quotations? If so, why not take your own advice and go to those students who want to censor and shut down the free exercise of ideas (and, I might add, art).