Report Introduction:
The following research paper is an interpretation of survey answers used for a project revolving around the First Amendment for our Media Law class at William Penn University. The purpose of the project was to gauge the knowledge of the First Amendment of William Penn’s student population, as a recent study done by the Freedom Forum Institute showed a severe lack of knowledge about the First Amendment. The survey released to the student population was comprised of six questions with an average time of completion of two minutes. The next section of this report will break down how the survey was conducted, with each question that appeared in the survey will be detailed in later sections.
Link to the State of the First Amendment Survey: https://www.freedomforuminstitute.org/first-amendment-center/state-of-the-first-amendment/
Survey Methodology:
The survey was conducted through the weeks of March 25 through April 10, with the final number of responses being 35, 15 more responses than our original goal, with the majority being students. The survey was spread with a survey created using the website SurveyMonkey to gain as much of a reach as possible.
The target demographic for the survey was William Penn University students on the Oskaloosa and Johnston classes. This was done by sending the email in William Penn’s student email group which all the students on both campuses lumped into one group. The average response time of the survey was two minutes, which helps show the participants not using internet search engines, like Google or Bing, to help them answer the Survey questions in a “correct” manner.
Findings:
First Amendment Familiarity:
The first two questions asked in the survey were to gauge the base knowledge students have about the First Amendment. This was accomplished by asking the subjects how many freedoms the First Amendment grants and to name those freedoms. With the correct answer of the first question being five. Out of the 35 responses the survey received 60 percent said the correct answer of five, 22.86 percent answering was four freedoms, 11.43 percent saying there was only one freedom granted underneath the First Amendment.
Although most William Penn Students answered correctly about the amount of freedoms granted, few could list the actual freedoms of the First Amendment.
First Amendment Court Case: Texas v. Johnson
The third and fourth question asked in the survey asked the participants about the controversial Texas v. Johnson court case, which was about the legality of burning the American Flag. Which the Supreme Court ruled that it was protected underneath the First Amendment. However, a person could still be charged with other offenses for this action, an example of this would be being charged with lighting a fire in a public area.
Out of the responses we received 77.14 percent answered correctly about the legality of burning a flag. With 85.71 percent recognizing that even though it is protected about under the First Amendment, a person could still be charged with other offenses.
Although there is no way to know if the participants knew about Texas v. Johnson before the took the survey, the knowledge that students possess on these issues are above the national average. Which helps show a trend of not only knowing the freedoms granted underneath the United States Constitution, but also that they can use that knowledge to think about a scenario where those freedoms may seem muddled through a critical lens.
Opinions about the First Amendment:
The last two questions of the survey were designed to gauge an overall opinion about the First Amendment, although there was no short answer section for the participants to detail their feelings. When asked about whether the First Amendment clearly defined the freedoms it grants, there was only a slight majority which said it did. With 57.14 percent saying that it did, with 42.86 percent saying that it didn’t clearly define its principle freedoms. However, once they were asked whether the First Amendment granted too many freedoms to the American public, a clear majority (94.29 percent) said that it doesn’t grant too many freedoms, with only 5.71 percent saying that it did grant too many freedoms. Which when combined with the fact that the students of William Penn can recognize more freedoms shows an increased knowledge of their guaranteed rights and some of the ways those rights affect their daily life.
Conclusion:
This study helped show that even though the students of William Penn University lack a perfect recollection of the First Amendment, they have an increased amount of knowledge when compared to the national average. Another key finding was William Penn students being able to use a level of critical thinking, with the majority siding with the U.S. Supreme Court when posed with a scenario involving these rights with little outside help. Which shows that, at least within the walls of William Penn University, there is a trend of more young adults knowing what their constitutional rights are. Which could be seen as an amazing improvement giving the current ever shifting political landscape the students will soon find themselves in upon graduation.
The Statesmen Status 