John Villasenor UCLA Professor and Senior Fellow at Brookings Institute Discusses College Students Perceptions of Freedom of Speech
MICHEAL SMERCONISH, CNN ANCOR: Former FBI Chief James Comey received a rude welcome at Howard University yesterday. Students shouted him down for 15 minutes with chants like "Comey's is not my homey," and continued to disrupt his entire speech. Comey then responded.</s>JAMES COMEY, FORMER FBI CHIEF: I love the enthusiasm of the young folks. I just wish they would understand what a conversation is.</s>SMERCONISH: College campuses have traditionally been safe havens for free speech, but that's no longer the case. At UC Berkley this week Ann Coulter, Milo Yiannoploulos, and Steve Bannon were supposed to speak at a free speech event, but coulter has withdrawn, Bannon is rumored to also be out, and the event seems to have fallen apart. This after more than 170 Berkley professors and students called for a boycott of classes and campus activities during the event. How far are protesters willing to go to prevent people they don't like from speaking? A new survey from the Brookings Institution suggests that students do not understand the meaning of free speech. Joining me now, the author of the study, John Villasenor is a senior fellow at Brookings and a UCLA professor. Thanks so much for being here. I want to put up some of the data from your survey. Let's begin with this does the First Amendment protect hate speech? Holy smokes, professor, 44 percent say no. you react.</s>JOHN VILLASENOR, SENOR FELLOW BROOKINGS INSTITUTE AND UCLA PROFESSOR: Yeah, this is a survey of 1,500 people who identified themselves as students in from 49 states, and among that responded group the responses were really, frankly, quite disturbing. There's a lack of understanding among respondents about some basic attributes of the First Amendment.</s>SMERSONISH: The internals of this interest me. Look at the gender divide. I'm sure you took note of that. In other words, more women than men by 11 points, 49-38 are in that no category.</s>VILLASENOR: Right there was -- again, among the 1,500 respondents to the survey, there was a significant gender difference there, as well as in some of the other, for example, men expressed much more tolerance for using violence to shut down speech they don't like than did women.</s>SMERSONISH: Let's go on to another data set. So what's the appropriate response when there's a speaker with whom you don't agree? In this case 51% say that it's okay to shout them down, 62% of democrats, 39% of republicans, as I'm showing on the screen hold those views. Your reaction?</s>VILLASENOR: Yeah, again, in the caveat it's within this particular group of respondents, but I think the reaction is, nobody's looking good here, right? 62 percent is not a good number, but 39 percent is not a number to be proud of either. And I think, frankly, this is the new normal.</s>VILLASENOR: Within this particular group of respondents, but I think the reaction is, nobody's looking good here, right? Sixty-two percent is not a good number, but 39 percent is not a number to be proud of either. And I think, frankly, this is the new normal, and we've seen this just yesterday with the James Comey speech and we're going to see it, unfortunately, I'm sure throughout the coming academic year.</s>SMERCONISH: I promise I'll get to the why question in a moment, but another, if I may put this on the screen, is it appropriate to use violence to prevent a speaker from speaking? 19 percent, let's call it 1 out of 5 of college students in America say, yeah, that's fine.</s>VILLASENOR: Yes again, just to make sure it's accurately characterized, it was among my respondent group. And you know, to the extent that's representative, then that's the case. I also, it's important to emphasize that that question was referring to, you know, extremely offensive speaker, and I'm in no way advocating or supporting the answer of supporting violence. But it was phrased intentionally to gauge students' reactions to the most obnoxious and offensive of speakers, and a stunningly high percentage of the respondents did, in fact, say they were in agreement with the use of violence to prevent that speech, I find that a disturbing answer.</s>SMERCONISH: Perhaps most disturbing of all is that the students are looking to the institution to protect them from harmful words. You gave two scenarios. Put the fourth slide up on the screen. And you asked them, you know, which option is the appropriate option, and I'll explain. Option one was that the university creates a positive learning environment for all students by prohibiting certain speech. Option two was that they create a learning environment where students are exposed to all types. 53 percent, slightly more than half said, please, prohibit the offensive speech, your reaction?</s>VILLASENOR: Yeah, my reaction is that anyone who spends time on college campuses in the last year or two probably wouldn't find it very surprising, those numbers. There's really a burgeoning move towards expectations of censorship in that environment, and I personally find those numbers disappointing, but not particularly surprising in light of my own --what I've observed on college campuses recently.</s>SMERCONISH: Okay, now the why question. Why is this the state of affairs?</s>VILLASENOR: I think there's complicated question, certainly, we can't answer in just a few minutes and I don't know if I have all the answers. But I think there's this growing expectation, especially recently, that the bounds of permissible speech should be determined in large part by the potential reaction of a listener. And if something might be deemed offensive, then it perhaps ought to be deemed unlawful or blocked. And, of course, that is directly in contradiction with the broad scope that the First Amendment gives us with respect to freedom of expression and, of course, other things, as well. But I think that -- that's the underlying cause or one of the root causes here. Another briefly, if I may, there's increasingly this view that words are violence, or certain words are violence, and, therefore, if you believe that words are violence, you might then believe the appropriate reaction to words is violence. Of course, I strongly disagree, but that mode of thinking has also become more common than in the past.</s>SMERCONISH: How about as a potential explanation the lack of a civics curriculum in high school the way that it was, well, in my era?</s>VILLASENOR: Yeah, I'm a very strong believer in the fact we ought to do a better job of emphasizing teaching these incredibly important Constitutional principles early, in pre-college education. The challenge is a lot of these folks arrive in college having already perhaps not had enough exposure to this. And So I think most high school kids, for example, could tell you there's a bill of rights, but few of them could probably tell you more -- a lot of the details about the first amendment. We don't need to turn these people into experts on constitutional law, but I think we can do a better job of giving them some explanation of the contours of these fundamental rights like we have thanks to the first amendment and the incredibly important role it plays in our democracy.</s>SMERCONISH: John Villasenor, thanks for the work. It was very interesting. We appreciate it.</s>VILLASENOR: Appreciate the opportunity to be on with you.</s>SMERCONISH: Here's more now of what you're saying on my twitter and face book pages. What do we have, Katherine? Young people don't respect the first amendment. Of course not, Smerconish, the internet's unregulated and abusive free speech turned public opinion. Patrick, that's scary. I don't know, though, if they don't respect it or they are not aware of it, because as I pointed out to the professor, there were multiple civics requirements that I had to fulfill in my k-12 public education. I don't think that's the case and maybe all this standardized testing in math and science, just a thought of mine, doesn't leave time for that in the curriculum.</s>SMERCONISH: We keep hearing if only the U.S. had a health care system like they do in, say, Canada or in England or many other countries, but a new study compared them. So, who's the best and what can we learn from them?