A new poll by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) has some good news and some bad news. I’ll highlight what I see are the important results, but you can read the whole thing by clicking below.
The poll was conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago (formerly the National Opinion Research Center), and their results are generally solid. The sample, says the page, “The
.. . . was conducted May 17-19, 2024, using NORC’s AmeriSpeak® probability-based panel, and sampled 1,309 Americans. The overall margin of error for the survey is +/- 4%.
Here are some graphs:
While some of these protest actions are regulated on campuses (ours, for example, regulates the times when you can use amplified sound), the poll is simply about whether it’s okay for college students to engage in these activities. No “time, place, or manner” restrictions are discussed.
Given that, and looking at the dark and light red bars as indications of “not very acceptable”, we see pretty much what we expect. What’s surprising is that a huge majority of Americans (these are not just students) find burning an American flag unacceptable (about 70% “never acceptable and 12% “rarely acceptable”), despite the fact that burning an American flag is protected as free speech by the First Amendment! (So is holding signs.) Americans either don’t know or don’t care about that interpretation of flag-burning by the courts. As the FIRE site notes:
“It’s no shocker that Americans tend to disapprove of illegal and illiberal conduct by student protesters,” said FIRE Chief Research Advisor Sean Stevens. “But it’s alarming that a third of Americans say constitutionally protected and non-threatening activities like sign-holding or petitions are only ‘sometimes’ or ‘rarely’ acceptable. Nonviolent protest should always be acceptable on college campuses.”
But I disagree with FIRE in part here as there are time, place, and manner restrictions that apply even to nonviolent protests. Blocking access to campus or impeding classes with megaphones and shouting are nonviolent forms of protest, but prevent academia from operating propetly. In my view, FIRE is simply wrong that these should always be acceptable. Much of the time, yes, but not always.
Encamping is also of interest, and 43% of American think that establishing them is “never acceptable” while about 22% see them as “rarely acceptable”. About 25% see encampments as “sometimes or always acceptable”, with the “sometimes” outnumbering “always’ here. Whether universities consider encampment acceptable, of course, depends on the school and the form of encampment. Williams College, for instance, had a small, out-of-the-way encampment and nobody was bothered.
Here are the consequences that the American public thinks should fall onto students participating in encampments.
FIRE’s summary:
Nearly three-fourths of Americans (72%) believe that campus protesters who participated in encampments should be punished, but only 18% believe they should receive the harshest penalty of expulsion. Other responses ran the gamut from suspension (13%), to probation (16%), to written reprimand (12%), to community service (13%). Only 23% believe the students should receive no punishment at all.
LOL; I think more than 23% of colleges themselves believe that encamping students should receive no punishment at all. At least that’s my guess based on the number of students who seem to be getting of scot-free for encamping. As for punishment, there’s roughly equal sentiment in faor of a written reprimand, community service, probation, suspension, or expulsion. Perhaps a written reprimand would be okay for students who are first-time violators, but the penalty should go up if there are previous violations on a student’s record, and also on how much warning they were given by the university, as well as whether they engaged in any harassment of individuals during the encampment.
There’s a bit more:
“Public colleges and universities can usually ban encampments without violating the First Amendment, so long as the ban serves a reasonable purpose, enforcement is consistent and viewpoint-neutral, and students maintain other avenues for expressing themselves,” said FIRE Director of Campus Rights Advocacy Lindsie Rank. “Universities can’t disproportionately punish students just because administrators don’t agree with the viewpoint being expressed at the encampment.”
Agreed!
And I’ve saved the good news for last:
FIRE’s summary:
Almost two-thirds of Americans (63%) said that the campus protests had no impact at all on their level of sympathy for Palestinians in Gaza, and respondents were as likely to say that the campus protests made them sympathize less with the Palestinians (17%) as they were to say they made them sympathize more (16%).
In other words, the net effect of campus protests—and they surely mean “pro-Palestinian protests”—is ZERO: as just as many people become more sympathetic as become less sympathetic, while most people don’t change their minds at all. In other words, the protests are performative, at least with respect to American opinion. They could, of course, hearten or disappoint Hamas, but again the net effect would be nil. What the protests do accomplish is reduce America’s confidence in colleges and universities, which seems to be continuously slipping. And yes, that’s bad news:
FIRE’s poll also shows that American confidence in colleges and universities continues to slip. Only 28% of respondents said that they have either a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in U.S. colleges and universities. By comparison, 36% of Americans told Gallup in summer 2023 that they have a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in higher education in the U.S.
The FIRE summary concludes with more bad news: a pessimistic take of Americans on whether institutions of higher education protest free speech
Colleges received middling grades in particular on the issue of protecting speech. Almost half of Americans (47%) say that it is “not at all” or “not very” clear that college administrators protect free speech on their campus. Roughly two-in-five Americans (42%) said that it is “not at all”or “not very” likely that a school administration would defend a speaker’s right to express their views during a controversy on campus.
To be honest I’ve become less sympathetic to the Palestinian cause due to the protests, though I know rationally that they should have no impact. The idea of nearly half of respondents outright rejecting, or giving only qualified support, to the idea of signing *a petition* is, however, bizarre.
On a related note, Alvin Bragg, the New York DA, has apparently decided not to charge most of the Columbia protestors. I haven’t seen if this means he has actually charged any. I would hope that Columbia would pursue a civil action for damages against the protestors. Certainly, any protestor that commits vandalism or other violent actions should be expelled.
See the Nooz tomorrow. Nearlly all pardoned, others offered deals in which their records could be sealed after 6 months of good behavior (they refused!) and one is charged with more serious crimes. In light of that, I hope Columbia brings university charges against the miscreants.
I wonder if he would have charged them if they were had been wearing MAGA hats.
Interesting. I’m glad that most people can look past the protests and form their positions independently.
I agree with Jerry that: “FIRE is simply wrong that these should always be acceptable.” FIRE’s statement seems to align with the position that “acceptable” and “legal” are synonymous, but to me they are not synonymous.* Holding a legally, permitted, Nazi march down a city street might be legal, but it’s not socially acceptable. Similarly, burning the American flag is legal, but I don’t think we should take pride in the fact that people sometimes do this as a form of protest.
Just because an act is legal doesn’t mean that it should also be acceptable. My guess is that the respondents to the FIRE survey made the same distinction that I am making in crafting their responses. In other words, people may understand that flag burning is protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, but they may nonetheless deem it “unacceptable” in regarding it as an inappropriate method of protest.
*Note: I don’t know FIRE’s position on whether the two are synonymous in fact.
I see it the other way round. Many protests are founded on the idea that illegal actions are not only acceptable but desirable and necessary. Lawful methods of persuasion have not won you over to our radical viewpoint that few people support. Therefore large numbers of us are going to break a whole bunch of your laws in hopes that you will be intimidated (by the fear of what other laws we might break, like assault and arson as we have in the past) into giving us what we want. We don’t seek to change your minds. We hope merely to enforce compliance.
Civil disobedience is a subset of this mindset and has some moral support when it specifically breaks only unjust laws and seeks only to have those unjust laws repealed. But what to make of occupation of private property? An argument that the law of trespass is unjust and the protestors seek to make it unenforceable and thereby abolish private property? Or the less ambitious goal that property owners should feel sufficiently intimidated by the illegal interdiction of their property to divest from Israel?
I noticed that to, and agree that “acceptable” is an imprecise wording that shouldn’t have been used if “should be legal” is what they wanted to have an opinion about. I personally don’t find flag burning (of anyone’s flag) or book burning (e.g. of the Quran) acceptable, but fully believe they should be legal. Then again, civil disobedience in the sense of breaking laws for a greater good is acceptable to me in certain cases.
I definitely read “is it acceptable” to mean, do I think it is a good thing, not is it legal. I would think most Americans know flag burning is legal, so acceptable in the question doesn’t mean that.
Having worked on customer surveys quite a few times, one must really be careful with the wording of questions to make sure that you get the info that you want.
Perhaps universities should explore differentiating between student and employee behavior in regards to campus protests. Employees who encourage or incite student protests that subsequently break rules may be partially responsible for student misbehavior … a situation analogous to Trump’s behavior in amping up the outrage that led to the subsequent Capitol riot. Perhaps university employees who prey upon the passions of the young to further their own political goals should pay a price for their predatory behavior.
See the Nooz tomorrow. Nearlly all pardoned, others offered deals in which their records could be sealed after 6 months of good behavior (they refused!) and one is charged with more serious crimes. In light of that, I hope Columbia brings university charges against the miscreants.
If lighting ANY fire on campus is prohibited, should flag-burning be excepted?
Yes, but Quran-burning should be excepted as well.
(Provided always that appropriate written fire safety policies and procedures are documented as being complied with. Time, place and manner, you know. Piling a pallet of Qurans up against the wooden door of the Muslim Students Association and setting the pile alight with kerosene would not be something to turn one’s blind eye to.)