One day after the people of Iraq took a collective, courageous, inspiring step toward democracy and freedom, a disturbing study shows that Americans may be taking a giant apathetic step backward.
A survey of 112,003 high-school students by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation has found an extreme lack of awareness and even contempt for the rights and freedoms they enjoy everyday.
Only 51 percent of high school students surveyed said they agreed with the statement, “Newspapers should be allowed to publish freely without government approval of stories.” In other words, half of students believe (or simply don’t care) that the government should be allowed to censor news reports; they do not believe in, or are apathetic toward, free press.
It is even worse than that: 83 percent of high school students surveyed agree with the statement, “People should be allowed to express unpopular opinions.” Or 17 percent of students feel that if a belief is “unpopular,” you should not be allowed to legally express your belief. In other words, 17 percent of students do not believe in freedom of speech.
When we only count students who have never taken a media class in high school, the number who don’t believe in freedom of speech leaps to 33 percent!
How is it possible that high schoolers could be so indifferent about basic freedoms, the very foundation of what makes America great, the very thing the government says so many young Americans are dying to try to spread to the rest of the world? Are these the beliefs of the incoming freshmen and sophomores to this University?
It is not just the beliefs of these students that are scary. When high-school teachers were asked whether high-school newspapers should be allowed to report on controversial topics without approval from school authorities, only 39 percent said yes. And only
58 percent of teachers believed that musicians should be allowed to sing songs with offensive lyrics.
These are the teachers who are responsible for instilling an appreciation of the First Amendment in their students. Even 30 percent of Americans feel the First Amendment goes too far. No wonder our young people are incapable of outrage about government intrusions in their private lives. No wonder our young people sit quietly as their freedoms are shaved away.

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