As Fredrick Douglass once said, “To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker.” However, recent studies have shown that Americans today don’t have quite as much reverence for their First Amendment rights.
A Huffington Post/YouGov poll released Monday revealed that a plurality of Americans currently favor free speech restrictions for college students. The poll questioned 1,000 American adults about free speech and racial issues on college campuses. These poll results come after much unrest on campuses across the nation — specifically incidents at the University of Missouri and Dartmouth.
When asked, “In general, do you think colleges should or should not punish students who make racially offensive statements?” A full 53 percent were in favor of punishing students, while 28 percent decided they should not be punished, and 19 percent remained undecided.
Just around 50 years ago, Americans — college students specifically — fought to protect their First Amendment rights. Specifically, the Free Speech Movement at the University of California, Berkeley, sparked national sit-ins and demonstrations by college students to preserve their right to free speech and academic freedom.
Today, millennials are the most likely to favor free speech restrictions. A Pew Research Center poll performed in November broke down the free speech question by generation. This poll revealed that millennials were the generation most likely (at 40 percent) to support government prevention of offensive statements towards minorities. In contrast, only 27 percent of Generation X supported government intervention, followed by 24 percent of Baby Boomers, and just 12 percent of the Silent generation.
When broken down by party affiliation, 35 percent of Democrats and 27 percent of Independents favor government intervention, while only 18 percent of Republicans share that opinion.
The results of the HuffPost poll also revealed some inconsistencies that came from the polarizing views on these issues. For example, Americans were split when asked whether universities should devote funding to promoting diversity, 42 percent of responders called it “a waste of money and resources,” while 32 percent stated that doing so is “an important initiative to support.” The remaining 26 percent were undecided in the matter.
However, most Americans did agree that college presidents must address these issues. 72 percent of responders said, “the college president does have a responsibility to personally address racial incidents” on campus, while just 17 percent said, “the college president does not have a responsibility to personally address the incidents.” The remaining 12 percent were undecided.
