Last fall, the football team at the University of Missouri went on strike to protest slow administrative response to incidents of racial harassment on campusājoining other students in a movement that resulted in the resignation of the schoolās president.
Although students at the school asserted their right to protest, a viral video of Tim Tai, a student photojournalist, being blocked from documenting what was happening raised concerns over whether free speech rights on the campus were eroding.
RELATED:Activists Claim Victory After Harvard Drops School Seal With Ties to Slavery
āThe First Amendment protects your right to be here and mine,ā Tai told the protesters gathered around him. āForget a law. How about humanity and respect?ā replied a student. A few minutes later, professor Melissa Click, now fired, could be seen trying to prohibit another student from recording the incident. āHey, who wants to help me get this reporter out of here?ā Click yells to the protesters.
According to a Gallup survey of college students released Monday in collaboration with the Knight Foundation and the Newseum Institute, most undergraduates across the United States believe First Amendment rights are secure. At the same time, nearly half think some restrictions on free speech are justified.
āStudents do appear to distinguish controversial views from what they see as hate. They believe colleges should be allowed to establish policies restricting language and behavior that are intentionally offensive to certain groups, but not the expression of political views that may upset or offend members of certain groups,ā wrote the authors of a report accompanying the survey.
The survey polled a nationally respresentative sample of 3,000 college students 18 to 24 about their attitudes toward the First Amendment. While 78 percent of students surveyed said ācolleges should expose students to all types of speech and viewpoints,ā the reportās authors note that 69 percent believe policies against slurs and intentionally offensive language are needed.
Thatās comparable to the findings of The American Freshman: National Norms Fall 2015, an annual survey by the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles. Roughly 71 percent of respondents to UCLAās survey agreed that schools should prohibit racist or sexist speech on campus, up from 60 percent in the early 1990s.
RELATED: When It Comes to Protests, Boomers and Gen X Got Nothinā on Millennial
Bad news for students who dress in blackface or as Native Americans at Halloween: 63 percent of respondents to Gallupās poll said schools should be able to restrict students from wearing costumes that stereotype racial or ethnic groups.
Only 27 percent of students who responded to the poll believe a school should be able to restrict students from expressing politically offensive views.
