High school students against free speech
Here’s the good news: Fully 69% of American high school students think musicians should be allowed to sing songs with “offensive” lyrics without fear of prosecution.
Here’s the bad news: Only 54% of students say newspapers should be allowed to publish controversial stories without government approval.
Read the full story at http://www.theadvocates.org/liberator/vol-11-num-19.html#GBU
September 24th, 2006 at 7:25 pm
The article does say:
“According to the survey, students support the First Amendment most when it directly affects them. For example, 64 percent said student newspapers should be able to publish without school officials’ approval.”
Maybe our best hope is that as these students mature and reach adulthood they will carry this attitude with them and will realize how their first amendment rights are directly affected every day. Instead of being concerned about their school newspaper they will extend that to their local newspaper.
However, when I was in high school, I don’t recall feeling that the press had too much freedom. I don’t know how this attitude has changed so dramatically. Perhaps there is indeed some conspiracy afoot, and the oft-mentioned and unnamed “THEY” have manipulated our school systems to produce non-thinking, compliant citizens. If this is the case, “THEY” have been quite successful.
On the other hand, perhaps it is all just a result of too much TV, too little conversation and no exposure to critical thinking. or, maybe it stems from people having some distrust of the press in general.
It seems to me that since I was in high school atitudes about the press have shifted. Instead of seeing the press as independent, trustworthy and honorable, there is a tendency to view the media as being manipulative and disingenuous. It is possible that teen-agers think that since the press is not to be trusted there should be more supervision of what is published.
This survey doesn’t even mention the specific ages of the teens involved. Today’s sixteen-year-old was only 11 and barely out of elementary school when the towers fell on Sept 11. These kids are coming to age in a different world! Surely that has also had influenced their opinions about first amendment rights.
That’s the trouble with surveys–they tell you what people think, but don’t include why they think that way.