HBCU Students Favor Limits on Press Freedoms.
Byline: Jeffrey M. Jones
Synopsis: Students at historically black colleges are much more likely than college students nationally to favor steps that would limit freedom of the press, such as denying reporters access to covering campus protests.
PRINCETON, N.J. -- A majority of students at historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), 56%, believe campus protesters should be able to deny the press access to protests. Those views contrast with the opinions of college students nationally, including black students at non-HBCU colleges, two-thirds of whom say the press should be allowed to cover campus protests.
The results are based on a Gallup poll conducted in partnership with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Newseum Institute that looks at HBCU students' views on First Amendment issues. The poll and its related report are a follow-up to a study released earlier this year that examines U.S. college students' and national adults' views of First Amendment freedoms.
Last fall, a wave of protests on racial matters swept through college campuses across the country. Those protests made clear that tensions can arise when individuals attempt to exercise their First Amendment rights. One prominent example of these tensions came at the University of Missouri when protesters, exercising their rights of free speech and assembly, attempted to block reporters, exercising their free press rights, from covering the protests.
HBCU students were especially attuned to those protests -- 43% said they heard or read "a great deal" about them, compared with 25% of all U.S. college students.
HBCU students are sympathetic to a variety of rationales protesters might have for denying the press access to a campus protest, including asserting a right to be left alone and believing the reporting will be unfair. This is in contrast to the larger population of U.S. college students who are divided on the legitimacy of those reasons.
HBCU students may sympathize more with student protesters than the press because they express a high level of distrust in the news media. Seventy-three percent of HBCU students say they have little or no trust in the mass media to report the news accurately and fairly, compared with 59% of all U.S. college students and 61% of black students at non-HBCU colleges.
HBCU students might also side with protesters over the media because they believe free press rights in the U.S. are secure (75%), but they are much less likely...
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