According to a new global
Pew Research Center poll, nearly half of America's millennials think the government should prevent public statements being made that could offend minorities.
The numbers went down among older poll respondents:
- Millennials (ages 18-34), 40 percent;
- Generation X (ages 35-50) 27 percent;
- Baby Boomers (ages 51-69), 24 percent;
- Silent Generation (ages 70-87), 12 percent.
Despite the results with the younger generation, Americans as a whole were less likely to say that the government should be able to prevent speech, reports Pew, and were more likely than people in other countries to believe that way. Two-thirds of Americans believe people should be able to say offensive things, but among 38 nations polled, a median of 35 percent said speech should be not be regulated.
There is also a racial divide in the United States, as non-whites, at 38 percent, were more likely to support government prevention of offensive speech, compared to 23 percent of non-Hispanic whites.
In addition, the polling was sharply divided along political lines, with nearly twice as many Democrats, at 35 percent, than Republicans, at 18 percent, believing the government should be able to stop speech against minorities.
And one-third of women believe in curtailing speech, compared to 23 percent of men.
The poll as released while college activists and the "Black Lives Matter" movement are making demands at more than 20 universities, reports The Daily Caller, including restrictions on Halloween costumes at Yale University and calls to remove of late President Woodrow Wilson's name and image at Princeton University because of his views on race.
There has also been pressure at Amherst College to drop its mascot of Lord Jeffrey Amherst, who some argue gave blankets infected with the smallpox virus to Native Americans during the French and Indian War, and at the University of North Dakota , which now calls its teams the "Fighting Hawks” after the National Collegiate Athletic Association said its former name, the "Fighting Sioux” was “hostile and abusive.”
In the United States, 1,003 adults aged 18 and older were surveyed, and the poll carries a margin of error of 3.6 percentage points.
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