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Antiochus · Sep 19, 2017

...but a large minority of them do not, and in fact have tendencies to endorse violence if they view it as necessary:

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixg...he-first-amendment-results-from-a-new-survey/

Here is some more detailed information regarding the survey:

This web survey of 1,500 undergraduate students at U.S. four-year colleges and universities was conducted between August 17 and August 31, 2017. Financial support for the survey was provided by the Charles Koch Foundation to UCLA. I designed the survey questions and then requested that UCLA contract with a vendor for the data collection. I then performed the data analysis, including weighting. The survey results presented here have been weighted with respect to gender to adjust for the reported 57 percent/43 percent gender split among college students; by contrast, 70 percent (1,040 of the 1,500) of the survey respondents identified as female. The percentages in the tables in this article, with the exception of the percentages in the gender-specific (rightmost two) columns of the tables, have been subject to weighting in relation to gender.

Of the 1,500 respondents, 697 identified a Democrats, 261 as Republicans, and 431 as Independents. Another 111 respondents stated ”Don't Know" when asked to state their political affiliation. Of the 1,500 respondents, 1,116 are students at public institutions, and 384 are students at private institutions. This public/private split of 74 percent/36 percent among respondents approximately mirrors the split in the broader undergraduate population.

To the extent that the demographics of the survey respondents (after weighting for gender) are probabilistically representative of the broader U.S. college undergraduate population, it is possible to estimate the margin of error in the tables above. For a confidence level of 95 percent, the margin of error is between approximately 2 percent and 6 percent—the margin of error is smaller for the categories with larger numbers of respondents (such as ”All" category in the tables, which has 1500 respondents), and larger for the categories with smaller numbers of respondents (such as ”Republicans").

The survey was limited to students who indicated that they are U.S. citizens (this is relevant because non-citizens, particularly those who have very recently arrived in the U.S., cannot be expected to have as full an understanding of the First Amendment as U.S. citizens)

Here are the gripping results this researcher has found:

Does the First Amendment protect ”hate speech"?

One of the noteworthy observations from this data is that across all three political affiliations listed in the table, fewer than half of the respondents indicated a belief that hate speech is constitutionally protected. The very significant gender variation in the responses is also noteworthy.

One way to examine tolerance to offensive speech is to explore views on what actions students deem permissible to prevent it from occurring. The next two questions are based on the following scenario:

A public university invites a very controversial speaker to an on-campus event. The speaker is known for making offensive and hurtful statements.
The survey included a set of questions considering student views regarding actions aimed at disrupting the speech:

A student group opposed to the speaker disrupts the speech by loudly and repeatedly shouting so that the audience cannot hear the speaker. Do you agree or disagree that the student group's actions are acceptable?

The responses to the above question show a very distinct variation across political affiliation, with 62 percent of Democrats but ”only" 39 percent of Republicans agreeing that it was acceptable to shout down the speaker. More generally, I find the numbers in the above table to be highly concerning, because they show that a very significant fraction of students, across all categories, believe it is acceptable to silence (by shouting) a speaker they find offensive. And, it gets worse:

A student group opposed to the speaker uses violence to prevent the speaker from speaking. Do you agree or disagree that the student group's actions are acceptable?

If you had to choose one of the options below, which do you think it is more important for colleges to do?

Option 1: create a positive learning environment for all students by prohibiting certain speech or expression of viewpoints that are offensive or biased against certain groups of people

Option 2: create an open learning environment where students are exposed to all types of speech and viewpoints, even if it means allowing speech that is offensive or biased against certain groups of people?

The researcher's conclusions:

As the above results make clear, among many current college students there is a significant divergence between the actual and perceived scope of First Amendment freedoms. More specifically, with respect to the questions explored above, many students have an overly narrow view of the extent of freedom of expression. For example, a very significant percentage of students hold the view that hate speech is unprotected. In addition, a surprisingly large fraction of students believe it is acceptable to act—including resorting to violence—to shut down expression they consider offensive. And a majority of students appear to want an environment that shields them from being exposed to views they might find offensive.

Some sober reading indeed, but perhaps the Koch Foundation money could have distorted things to the minds of those replying college students.

Volimar · Sep 19, 2017

Did this study factor in Nazi punching?

Antiochus · Sep 19, 2017

Volimar said:
Did this study factor in Nazi punching?

Of course it did not, it would have been impossible to do so without completely biasing the results due to priming of the responding students

snap · Sep 19, 2017

of course republicans are more likely to be ok with hate speech and giving it a platform

Volimar · Sep 19, 2017

Antiochus said:
Of course it did not, it would have been impossible to do so without completely biasing the results due to priming of the responding students

Sorry, I know you want serious replies, and I was being flippant.

Palette Swap · Sep 19, 2017

The responses to the above question show a very distinct variation across political affiliation, with 62 percent of Democrats but only 39 percent of Republicans agreeing that it was acceptable to shout down the speaker. More generally, I find the numbers in the above table to be highly concerning, because they show that a very significant fraction of students, across all categories, believe it is acceptable to silence (by shouting) a speaker they find offensive

I guess that researcher doesn't really believe in freedom of speech then, if he's so concerned with people expressing themselves.

Some of the framing reads like conservative masturbatory material tbh. Embarrassing.

Duji · Sep 19, 2017

Charles Koch funded? Hmm

Derwind · Sep 19, 2017

As the above results make clear, among many current college students there is a significant divergence between the actual and perceived scope of First Amendment freedoms. More specifically, with respect to the questions explored above, many students have an overly narrow view of the extent of freedom of expression. For example, a very significant percentage of students hold the view that hate speech is unprotected. In addition, a surprisingly large fraction of students believe it is acceptable to actincluding resorting to violenceto shut down expression they consider offensive. And a majority of students appear to want an environment that shields them from being exposed to views they might find offensive.

Like being told a portion of students are "sub-human" or doxxing transgender students...

Hmm, I wonder why those views might be offensive.

Researcher expects free-speech, to be free of negative reactions.

"Hey, I hate your kind and want to see you dead.. but don't raise your voice at me, I'm sheilded by my freeze peach."

FiggyCal · Sep 19, 2017

I'm not super positive how the study defined "supporting free speech" or even if the author did it at all.

Interestingly (and in my view, discouragingly), across most categories, and in the aggregate, the majority of students appear to prefer an environment in which their institution is expected to create an environment that shelters them from offensive views.

More specifically, people preferred "prohibiting certain speech or expression of viewpoints that are offensive or biased against certain groups of people". Which seems to indicate that most people don't support free speech in a strict sense. But i don't know if that is surprising.

Massive Duck. C.M. · Sep 19, 2017

Haven't read the whole thing yet, but your excerpts in the OP don't support the thread title

Oblivion · Sep 19, 2017

FiggyCal said:
I'm not super positive how the study defined "supporting free speech" or even if the author did it at all.

Yeah, it seems "free speech" is the is associated with being able to say racist shit without punishment. But what if it was something that right-wingers hated? Like pro-muslim speech, pro-socialism, or anti-Christian/white speech? I'm pretty sure the results would change dramatically.

Autoignition · Sep 19, 2017

Duji said:
Charles Koch funded? Hmm

This was my kneejerk reaction, too.

Either way, this survey confirms that tumblr was a mistake, I say, refreshing my dashboard.

FiggyCal · Sep 19, 2017

Derwind said:
Like being told a portion of students are "sub-human" or doxxing transgender students...

Hmm, I wonder why those views might be offensive.

Researcher expects free-speech, to be free of negative reactions.

"Hey, I hate your kind and want to see you dead.. but don't raise your voice at me, I'm sheilded by my freeze peach."

Yeah the implications are just weird. It seems like he's saying, for example, letting a guy go on stage to say something racist is "supporting free speech". Okay sure, I guess. But then protesting his talk by also using your first amendment rights is "not-supporting free speech"? I'm not sure how that works.

Painguy · Sep 19, 2017

FiggyCal said:
I'm not super positive how the study defined "supporting free speech" or even if the author did it at all.

More specifically, people preferred "prohibiting certain speech or expression of viewpoints that are offensive or biased against certain groups of people". Which seems to indicate that most people don't support free speech in a strict sense. But i don't know if that is surprising.

Definitely not surprising, but that's just the way most peeps are it seems like. Don't really need a study to tell you that.

Nobody wants things they don't like right?

thespot84 · Sep 19, 2017

FiggyCal said:
Yeah the implications are just weird. It seems like he's saying, for example, letting a guy go on stage to say something racist is "supporting free speech". Okay sure, I guess. But then protesting his talk by also using your first amendment rights is "not-supporting free speech"? I'm not sure how that works.

I didn't get the idea it was 'protesting', instead the scenario had students denying the speaker any ability to use speech at all. This doubly for the violence scenario. There's a difference between opposing speech and denying it outright.

Painguy said:
Definitely not surprising, but that's just the way most peeps are it seems like. Don't really need a study to tell you that. Nobody wants things they don't like right?

If people gave a shit and normalized the idea that freedom of speech is important but ideas must be weighed in the marketplace then it wouldn't have to be like that.

Ri'Orius · Sep 19, 2017

Huh, I'd thought hate speech was considered an exception to the first amendment, but googling it just now apparently it isn't. Current policy is that the speech needs to be inciting imminent danger. TIL.

Derwind · Sep 19, 2017

thespot84 said:
I didn't get the idea it was 'protesting', instead the scenario had students denying the speaker any ability to use speech at all. This doubly for the violence scenario. There's a difference between opposing speech and denying it outright.

Denying a specific platform for hate speech =//= denying speech outright.

The speaker has plenty of alternative platforms to peddle his/her brand of hate speech.

Glass Rebel · Sep 19, 2017

More generally, I find the numbers in the above table to be highly concerning, because they show that a very significant fraction of students, across all categories, believe it is acceptable to silence (by shouting) a speaker they find offensive.

Why isn't this acceptable? From my understanding it is as legal as hate speech.

Matt · Sep 19, 2017

Hate speech is protected by the first amendment, so that's not really an opinion question. The people who says it isn't are wrong.

If it should be is a different question entirely.

nel e nel · Sep 19, 2017

Antiochus said:
Some sober reading indeed, but perhaps the Koch Foundation money could have distorted things to the minds of those replying college students.

Respondents typically aren't told who is funding the research specifically to avoid this.

Lesath · Sep 19, 2017

Glass Rebel said:
Why isn't this acceptable? From my understanding it is as legal as hate speech.

Oh, that's because it was never about everyone's free speech; only theirs.

Miletius · Sep 19, 2017

thespot84 said:
I didn't get the idea it was 'protesting', instead the scenario had students denying the speaker any ability to use speech at all. This doubly for the violence scenario. There's a difference between opposing speech and denying it outright.

If people gave a shit and normalized the idea that freedom of speech is important but ideas must be weighed in the marketplace then it wouldn't have to be like that.

This part is the tricky part of that. The problem with saying "mah speech" is that when your dumb ass vomits out something and you expect it to be insightful. Then what? Are people supposed to give it weight? It's garbage. People should be entitled to tell you that. And, when it's something as garbage as "X race is superior because their IQ's are higher" or some other such nonsense then do we really need to listen to the end of the sentence to tell you you're wrong? The market has no tolerance for these ideas (in theory) because the market is supposed to be colorblind, a meritocracy (in theory).

Freeza Under The Shower · Sep 19, 2017

"Does the First Amendment protect hate speech? "

That's not a good survey question at all and the answer being roughly 50-50 confirms that suspicion immediately.

For example my answer would be:
In theory it shouldn't, but in practice, thank to the Supreme Court, it does.

So the survey answer would be 'both' which is not an option, therefore I'd pick 'neutral' and that means my answer gets tossed. (fun facts about surveys: neutral is usually coded as 'no answer' )

further on:

"A student group opposed to the speaker uses violence to prevent the speaker from speaking. Do you agree or disagree that the student groups actions are acceptable? "

holy loaded question, Batman! Of course the answer is 'disagree' because there is zero context given.

Study?

Morat · Sep 19, 2017

Brookings institute and Koch funding. Hmmmmm. Also, that is a poorly worded question to say the least.

Toxi · Sep 19, 2017

Can I just say the preoccupation with college speakers in free speech arguments is fucking hilarious?

FinaruDensetsu · Sep 19, 2017

Lol most everyone supports free speech. What we don't support is speech free from consequences.

Neoriceisgood · Sep 19, 2017

What a shitty survey, for reasons mentioned above.

If you frame it as fundamnetally being about free speech, violence & opinions you're gonna get idealistic answers based on stuff fresh in people's minds; rather than their opinion in e.g. specific extreme cases.

Like here's a fun one: should teachers be allowed to teach students opinion or things without any scientific bases whilst either lying about it being scientific, or leaving out the fact that it's not sourced?

If someone's desire to defend free speech is absolute, they would even be okay with teachers just having an entire curriculum based on lies, opinions and bullshit; right? Because heeyyyy diversity of opinion or something.

A survey like this needs to have many questions with different scenarios that are very extreme to see how far someone's willingness to defend "all free speech" would go to say anything about people other than their idealized vision.

Shauni · Sep 19, 2017

Saw this on the Post and figured it'd get posted here pretty soon.

Always-honest · Sep 19, 2017

Most people here are also completely fine with violence.
Just watch any "slap a neonazi" thread or "slap a racist" thread. I get why (it's basically self-defence at this point in time). But still.
Not only that, but people are proud that they were slapped around as a baby and have no problem continuing that very tradition a generation later.
That last part really weirds me out.

Free speech is a bit of fantasy still. But we're getting there. As long as we keep voting forward, not backward.

Snowman Prophet of Doom · Sep 19, 2017

Freeza Under The Shower said:
"Does the First Amendment protect hate speech? "

That's not a good survey question at all and the answer being roughly 50-50 confirms that suspicion immediately.

For example my answer would be:
In theory it shouldn't, but in practice, thank to the Supreme Court, it does.

So the survey answer would be 'both' which is not an option, therefore I'd pick 'neutral' and that means my answer gets tossed. (fun facts about surveys: neutral is usually coded as 'no answer' )

further on:

"A student group opposed to the speaker uses violence to prevent the speaker from speaking. Do you agree or disagree that the student groups actions are acceptable? "

holy loaded question, Batman! Of course the answer is 'disagree' because there is zero context given.

Study?

It's not so much the Supreme Court as the Constitution. First Amendment is not written with wiggle room.

wenis · Sep 19, 2017

Brookings and Koch... 👉🏾🚪

I'll take this one with a huge grain of salt. Just gigantic.

Dude Abides · Sep 19, 2017

That gender skew is kind of crazy. I wonder what caused it.

Snowman Prophet of Doom said:
It's not so much the Supreme Court as the Constitution. First Amendment is not written with wiggle room.

This isn't true at all. There is plenty of room for interpretation of the first amendment.

smokeandmirrors · Sep 19, 2017

Protesting people speaking isn't free speech apparently.

One Eyed Willy · Sep 19, 2017

FinaruDensetsu said:
Lol most everyone supports free speech.

Not according to the study.

Chmpocalypse · Sep 19, 2017

Why are private colleges, which aren't held to the same free speech standards as public schools due to not receiving government funds, part of a study on free speech? It's like including a private website like GAF in a study about government websites. They don't have the same obligations.

Lombax · Sep 19, 2017

I think a lot of folks are getting confused with what free speech means.
We have freedom of speech, but you also have to deal with the repercussions of what you say.
Be as racist a fuck as you want in public, but expect to be yelled at or punched in the face.

TS-08 · Sep 19, 2017

Lombax said:
I think a lot of folks are getting confused with what free speech means.
We have freedom of speech, but you also have to deal with the repercussions of what you say.
Be as racist a fuck as you want in public, but expect to be yelled at or punched in the face.

The gist of this comic is true and informative, but I feel like the first panel is misleading, as the First Amendment's protection of speech and expression is much more broad than it implies. It doesn't just apply to a speaker who is arrested and/or charged with a crime.

Fuchsdh · Sep 19, 2017

Chmpocalypse said:
Why are private colleges, which aren't held to the same free speech standards as public schools due to not receiving government funds, part of a study on free speech? It's like including a private website like GAF in a study about government websites. They don't have the same obligations.

They're surveying attitudes in general. Legal obligations aside, I'd say that there's more similar than different in how private and public institutions have traditionally viewed liberal tenets like these.

But either way even GAF has people who don't seem to understand that public institutions can't just reject everyone they want. That's why the XKCD comic retort annoys the hell out of me. It's actually a really broad and erroneous reduction of what the first amendment actually protects. It's not just "the government can't gag you or prosecute you", it's also that you're given equal access to public commons... including places like public universities.

Joe · Sep 22, 2017

The Guardian | Experts cast doubt on widely cited college free speech survey

John Villasenor, a professor of electrical engineering at the University of California Los Angeles...said this was the first public opinion survey he had conducted.

The way the survey results have been presented are ”malpractice" and ”junk science" and ”it should never have appeared in the press", according to Cliff Zukin, a former president of the American Association of Public Opinion Polling, which sets ethical and transparency standards for polling.

His survey was not administered to a randomly selected group of college students nationwide, what statisticians call a ”probability sample". Instead, it was given to an opt-in online panel of people who identified as current college students.

”If it's not a probability sample, it's not a sample of anyone, it's just 1,500 college students who happen to respond," Zukin said, calling it ”junk science".

He secured funding from the conservative Charles Koch Foundation to survey students this August about their views on free speech. Rather than write an academic paper, he posted some of his results online.

Villasenor's results had gone through no peer review process. The methodology section of his online post was vague, prompting several polling experts to question how reliable the survey's conclusions might be.

Villasenor wrote in an email that he was reluctant to give a yes or no ”sound bite" answer to the question of whether the students he surveyed were nationally representative of college students or not.

Villasenor had calculated a margin of error for his survey results and included it in the public writeup of his report, even though the sample of students he had surveyed was not random. Public polling experts said this was inappropriate and a basic error. Zukin called it ”very misleading" and ”malpractice".

By including a margin of error, the author appears to be ”trying to overstate the quality of his survey", said Chris Jackson, the vice-president of Ipsos Public Affairs, a public opinion firm.

Timothy Johnson, the current president of the American Association for Public Opinion Research, called it ”really not appropriate".

His survey had posed the question about violence and speech to students in late August, in the days immediately after neo-Nazis and white supremacists marched through the university town of Charlottesville, Virginia, leading to the murder of one young woman.

The post-Charlottesville moment would certainly have affected students' responses to a question about whether it was appropriate for a student group to use violence to prevent the speech of a ”very controversial speaker" who is ”known for making offensive and hurtful statements".

”If someone asks you that two days after Charlottesville, who do you think of immediately? You think of neo-Nazis," Jackson said.

Last year, a different, more nationally representative survey of American college student opinions on free speech on campus found strikingly different results from Villasenor's survey.

The 2016 Gallup survey of more than 3,000 college students, who had been selected in a carefully randomized process from a nationally representative group of colleges, had asked students the same question. It found that 78% of students said colleges should create an ”open learning environment".

May be new thread worthy?

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