People are Ignorant of the First Amendment
PHILADELPHIA, Nov. 21, 2003(UPI) — More than two-thirds of college students and administrators knew that freedom of religion and the press are guaranteed by the U.S. Bill of Rights.
In surveys conducted at 339 U.S. colleges and universities, more than one-fourth of students and administrators did not list freedom of speech as an essential right protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution, the Washington Times reported Friday.
And more than three-fourths did not name freedom of assembly and association or the right "to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
"If one thinks of the First Amendment as a foundational American liberty, the ignorance and misunderstanding of it by administrators at our nation's colleges and universities is frightening, and the general ignorance and misunderstanding of it by students is quite depressing," said Alan Charles Kors, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education in Philadelphia, which commissioned the surveys.
"The shocking results demonstrate a profound and dangerous failure to comprehend the moral and legal basis for religious liberty," says a summary of the findings by the Center for Survey Research and Analysis at the University of Connecticut at Storrs.
The surveys were conducted from December to May and involved 1,037 students and 306 administrators at public and private colleges and universities.
