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Key Findings (1)(2)(3)

Key Finding 1

High School Students' Attitudes about First Amendment Freedoms

Some distinctions in intensity of student attitudes were found across geographic regions on the issue of whether people should be allowed to express unpopular opinions. While 85 percent of Northeasterners and 86 percent of Midwesterners agreed with that right, just 81 percent of Southerners and 80 percent of the Western students felt that way. Moreover, 55 percent of students from the Northeast strongly agreed with that right, as compared with less than half (48 percent) of the students from the South who agreed strongly with the right to express unpopular opinions.

?Please circle whether you agree or disagree?mildly or strongly?
People should be allowed to express unpopular opinions??

Differences in community type were also apparent. Specifically, urban students (86 percent) were more likely than suburban students (81 percent) and rural students (82 percent) to agree that people should be allowed to express unpopular opinions.

Meanwhile, the difference in support for unpopular expression between students from red states and students from blue states was negligible. Those two groups agreed with that right at almost the exact same rate, with 83 percent of the students from red states and 84 percent of the students from blue states agreeing that people should be allowed to express unpopular opinions.

Regional attitudes vary a bit more concerning whether musicians should be allowed to sing songs with lyrics that others might find offensive. Nearly three in four (73 percent) students from the Northeast and the Midwest agree with that right. By contrast, only about two-thirds (66 percent) of high school students from the South and the West think that musicians should be allowed to sing songs with offensive lyrics.

Once again the divide among different community types was also pronounced, as urban students (73 percent) are more likely to favor the right to sing songs with offensive lyrics, as compared with suburban and rural students (68 percent for each).

Flag burning may be a divisive issue among adults, but high school students from different geographic regions register only very small differences in their views on the matter. Students from the West (19 percent) and Northeast (18 percent) favor the right only slightly more than those from the Midwest (17 percent) and the South (16 percent). And students from blue states (18 percent) are just a bit more in agreement with the right than those who hail from red states (16 percent).

A bit more division is revealed on the flag burning issue when considering different community types. Only 14 percent of suburban high school students agree with the right to burn flags as a means of political protest, as compared with 18 percent of those from rural and urban areas.

?Please circle if you agree or disagree that someone should be allowed to do it?
People should be allowed to burn or deface the American flag as a political statement.?

Threats of censorship elicit different reactions from students who hail from different parts of the country. Less than half of the students from the South (48 percent) agree that newspapers should be allowed to publish freely without government approval of a story, as compared with 54 percent of Northeastern students and 53 percent of Midwestern students. Suburban students (47 percent) are also less likely to agree with that right to publish than their cohorts from urban high schools (54 percent) or rural high schools (52 percent).

High school students from the South and the West feel only a bit more intensely than their cohorts from other regions that the First Amendment goes ?too far? in the rights it guarantees. So, 36 percent of students from the South and 37 percent of students from the West agreed with that statement, as compared with 34 percent from the Northeast and 32 percent from the Midwest who said they agreed that the First Amendment goes too far.

Once again, differences between the student population in red states and blue states were nonexistent; 34 percent of the students from both red and blue states agreed that the First Amendment goes too far.

Students from red and blue states also registered identical levels of agreement (32 percent each) with the statement that the press in America has too much freedom to do what it wants.

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