When freedom of speech is inconvenient, or makes their life a bit difficult, they’re totally okay with government censorship.

Greg Piper at the College Fix has the story:

Students Love First Amendment… When It’s Convenient For Them, Survey Finds

The Knight Foundation’s new report on First Amendment attitudes among high school students and teachers – released on Constitution Day this week – highlights that students actually “show a greater overall appreciation for the First Amendment” than adults for the first time.

They cherish the right to say what they want on social media without getting in trouble. Those who get news and information on mobile devices are more supportive of people’s right to express “unpopular opinions.”

Teachers, by contrast, have much higher comfort with speech – especially that of students – being restricted.

That’s the Knight Foundation’s spin on its survey, anyway. Read the report, though, and you start worrying how deeply students appreciate the First Amendment when it isn’t about their own vanity.

Song Lyrics More Cherished Than Press Freedom

First, there’s a troubling gender gap in attitudes toward the First Amendment: Only a bare majority of female students (53 percent) believe “newspapers should be allowed to publish freely without government approval of a story” (68 percent for male students). It’s 52 percent female student support for websites publishing without government approval (66 percent males).

The highest support for either gender goes a freedom that’s only been firmly recognized since a 1990 jury decision in favor of the rap group 2 Live Crew: musicians’ right to “sing songs with lyrics that others might find offensive” (63 percent female students, 73 percent male).