KC Johnson twitted a survey conducted by YouGov for the Bucknell Institute for Public Policy on public perceptions of higher education. The results are . . . surpisingly normal. By normal, I mean that for all the shrieking of the fringes on either side, and despite the ordinary breadth of belief in how best to accomplish our goals, most of us want the same thing.
While the survey covers far more than this mere slice, for the purpose of this post I’ll focus on attitudes toward the Title IX sex tribunals, having written at length about the issues.
It would appear, despite the protestations of feminist advocacy groups, and now 32 Democratic senators, that most people, regardless of political party affiliation, still believe that due process matters. Notably, it’s not that they dismiss sexual assault as a problem, but that they support due process nonetheless.
Even more significant is the belief that sexual assault should be addressed by the police, and that colleges should not be in the business of policing sex on campus.
The “news” isn’t entirely rosy, however.
This piece, of course, relates to our attitudes toward the presumption of innocence, and more particularly, Blackstone’s Ratio, that it’s better that ten guilty people go free than one innocent person be convicted. While the edge goes slightly in favor of the latter, the difference isn’t significant.
This isn’t entirely surprising, given decades of tough-on-crime rhetoric that suggests people are willing to sacrifice a few innocents, provided it’s neither them nor anyone they care about, for the good of society. It mirrors attitudes toward crime in general.
But what makes this survey comforting is that the political divisions that comprise the nightly news and editorial page of the New York Times aren’t shared by most Americans. Maybe we’re not a nation so divided, so extreme, so outraged, that we no longer share a common culture, a common sensibility, a common ethos, that will allow us to overcome our differences.
Discover more from Simple Justice
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
I lived in Texas for 12 years, and I noticed that Republicans are pretty much the same as Democrats, except for a few issues where they have each been conditioned to turn off their brains and get angry, in opposite directions. The only important difference is the conditioning.
I find it interesting to contemplate why the owners of the system create this false dichotomy.
The owners of what system created what false dichotomy? And what?
For example, if I tell a Democrat that the abortion debate is only designed to divide us, they get mad and say “But they are controlling women’s bodies and it’s wrong!” If I say that to a Republican, they get mad and say “But they want to come down here and kill our babies!” There is no real issue. People in the south don’t want abortions and they don’t have them. On the coasts they want abortions and they have them a lot. Everything is as it should be, but somehow the parties have convinced everyone that we should hate each other over this pointless disagreement. All of the “hot-button” issues that democrats and republicans care about are the same; they are false debates designed to make us stop thinking and get angry.
I’m surprised that an old guy like you doesn’t get the “owners” reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsL6mKxtOlQ
I’m surprised I wasn’t familiar with that either. Maybe because I think Carlin may be right around the fringes, but is wrong at the core. It reminds of the old days of the Trilateral Commission conspiracy. Makes total sense of things, but for the fact that it’s just not real.
I’d like to have seen the split compared to crimes off campus. Baseless speculation, of course, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s close to the public views on the rights of the accused in general.