http://www.opinionjournal.com/taste/?id=110004327
First Things First
Ignorance about the Constitution prevails on campus.
Friday, November 21, 2003 12:01 a.m. EST
If you think this is going to be one of those stories about how ignorant today's college kids are, you're only half right. It's also about ignorant college administrators. According to two new surveys from the Philadelphia-based Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, both groups are in desperate need of a refresher course in the First Amendment.
Belief on Campus
• Only 21% of administrators and 30% of students knew the First Amendment guarantees religious freedom.
• Only 6% of administrators and 2% of students knew that freedom of religion is the first freedom mentioned by the First Amendment.
• 74% of students and 87% of administrators believe it "essential" that students have this right, but . . .
• Only 41% of administrators and 32% of students believe that religious individuals should spread their beliefs by whatever legal means available.
• Only 43% of administrators and 23% of students "strongly support" allowing religious groups, including those with traditional views, to advance those views on campus.
Source: FIRE
That amendment begins as follows: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." But twin surveys commissioned by FIRE and conducted by the University of Connecticut's Center for Survey Research and Analysis tell us how few on campus really understand it. One of 10 college administrators even checked "don't know" when asked to name a specific First Amendment right. Increasingly this lack of awareness is having ugly consequences for campus believers.
At Rutgers and the University of North Carolina, for example, the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship was threatened with the denial of official recognition because it insisted its members be . . . Christians. At Cornell, a professor who put up posters that included references to the Bible and information about homosexuals changing their sexual orientation was charged with "sexual harassment." At Penn State, meanwhile, the Young Americans for Freedom were informed that their constitution and mission statement were "discriminatory" because they identified rights as "God-given."
Alan Charles Kors, a University of Pennsylvania history professor who doubles as FIRE's co-director, stresses that concern over the right to free religious expression is by no means an exclusive preserve of the right. FIRE's "Guide to Religious Liberty on Campus," published earlier this year, includes on its board of editors not only conservatives such as former Attorney General Ed Meese but also Harvard Law's Alan Dershowitz and the ACLU's Nadine Strossen.
Most troubling to Mr. Kors is a glaring double standard. Take the survey finding that administrators and students support the right of free religious expression only so long as that expression doesn't offend others. "This notion of 'comfort zones' is completely selective," says Mr. Kors. "If an antiwar group put up a poster of Iraqi children they claimed were maimed by George Bush, nobody would blink. But let a pro-life group put up a poster of an aborted fetus and suddenly it becomes, 'Well, they crossed the line.' "
The point here being that when ignorance of the link between freedom of religion and the First Amendment is so profound, violations are sure to follow.
First Things First
Ignorance about the Constitution prevails on campus.
Friday, November 21, 2003 12:01 a.m. EST
If you think this is going to be one of those stories about how ignorant today's college kids are, you're only half right. It's also about ignorant college administrators. According to two new surveys from the Philadelphia-based Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, both groups are in desperate need of a refresher course in the First Amendment.
Belief on Campus
• Only 21% of administrators and 30% of students knew the First Amendment guarantees religious freedom.
• Only 6% of administrators and 2% of students knew that freedom of religion is the first freedom mentioned by the First Amendment.
• 74% of students and 87% of administrators believe it "essential" that students have this right, but . . .
• Only 41% of administrators and 32% of students believe that religious individuals should spread their beliefs by whatever legal means available.
• Only 43% of administrators and 23% of students "strongly support" allowing religious groups, including those with traditional views, to advance those views on campus.
Source: FIRE
That amendment begins as follows: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." But twin surveys commissioned by FIRE and conducted by the University of Connecticut's Center for Survey Research and Analysis tell us how few on campus really understand it. One of 10 college administrators even checked "don't know" when asked to name a specific First Amendment right. Increasingly this lack of awareness is having ugly consequences for campus believers.
At Rutgers and the University of North Carolina, for example, the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship was threatened with the denial of official recognition because it insisted its members be . . . Christians. At Cornell, a professor who put up posters that included references to the Bible and information about homosexuals changing their sexual orientation was charged with "sexual harassment." At Penn State, meanwhile, the Young Americans for Freedom were informed that their constitution and mission statement were "discriminatory" because they identified rights as "God-given."
Alan Charles Kors, a University of Pennsylvania history professor who doubles as FIRE's co-director, stresses that concern over the right to free religious expression is by no means an exclusive preserve of the right. FIRE's "Guide to Religious Liberty on Campus," published earlier this year, includes on its board of editors not only conservatives such as former Attorney General Ed Meese but also Harvard Law's Alan Dershowitz and the ACLU's Nadine Strossen.
Most troubling to Mr. Kors is a glaring double standard. Take the survey finding that administrators and students support the right of free religious expression only so long as that expression doesn't offend others. "This notion of 'comfort zones' is completely selective," says Mr. Kors. "If an antiwar group put up a poster of Iraqi children they claimed were maimed by George Bush, nobody would blink. But let a pro-life group put up a poster of an aborted fetus and suddenly it becomes, 'Well, they crossed the line.' "
The point here being that when ignorance of the link between freedom of religion and the First Amendment is so profound, violations are sure to follow.