EDITORS' CORNER
Four in 10 college students believe offensive speech should be subject to criminal prosecution, according to the results of a nationwide survey published this month by the Buckley Institute.
The students were asked whether they agree or disagree with the statement: “Offensive speech should be subject to criminal prosecution.”
“Four in ten (40%) agree that offensive speech should be subject to criminal prosecution, while 52% disagree. Agreement is up seven points from last year and is the highest in the three years this question has been asked,” according to the survey, which polled 803 undergrads at four-year colleges across the country in mid-September.
The survey also found 46 percent of college students agree it is sometimes appropriate to shout down or disrupt a speaker on campus, while 47 percent disagree.
Another 45 percent agreed physical violence can be justified to prevent a person from using hate speech or making racially charged comments, while 50 percent disagreed.
In contrast, by a 73 percent to 20 percent margin, students said the Constitution is a very important document for the country rather than an outdated one, the results show. It also found that 87 percent say the First Amendment is an important amendment that still needs to be followed and respected in today’s society.
“The free-speech picture this year, as in many past years, indicates that many college students support free speech in theory but endorse censorship in practice,” states a news release from the Yale University-based institute, which works to foster free speech and intellectual diversity at the Ivy League institution.
“This year’s survey demonstrates that censorious attitudes remain stubbornly high on America’s college campuses,” said institute founder and executive director Lauren Noble. “During the 250th anniversary of America’s founding, America’s college students have swung heavily in favor of socialism. Alarmingly, those same students are more likely to support shout downs, violence to stop hate speech, and other tools of censorship.”
Additional findings from the survey include that 22 percent believe America deserved 9/11, including 28 percent of liberal students.
Forty-two percent also said they would rather live under a socialism versus just 28 percent who said they would rather live under capitalism, with the 14-point spread in favor of socialism being “the largest in the five years the question has been asked,” according to the institute.
The results mirror a recent North Dakota State University survey that found college students rated socialism slightly more favorably than capitalism.
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