What America's High School Students 
Think About Their Freedoms

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation’s High School Initiative seeks to encourage students to use the news media, including student journalism, and to better understand and appreciate the First Amendment.  

As part of the initiative, the foundation funded this “Future of the First Amendment’’ research project, focusing on the knowledge and attitudes of high school students, teachers and administrators. Specifically, the study seeks to determine whether relationships exist – and, if so, the nature of those relationships – between what teachers and administrators think, and what students do in their classrooms and with news media, and what they know about the First Amendment.

Ultimately, the initial 2005 project surveyed more than 100,000 high school students, nearly 8,000 teachers and more than 500 administrators and principals at 544 high schools across the United States. Subsequent surveys have been conducted since then, and information on those results can be found at firstamendmentfuture.org

Click here to access the Key Findings of the 2005 study

Click here to access the news release on the 2005 study

2006 Follow-up Study:

Knight Foundation follow-up survey shows classes on guaranteed freedoms are on the rise, but so is student skepticism
MIAMI – U.S. high school students know more about the First Amendment than they did two years ago, but they are increasingly polarized in how they feel about it, according to an update of a groundbreaking survey funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

U.S. high school students are far more likely to take classes that teach about the First Amendment than two years ago, according to the survey. And more students now support protections for the news media. They also are more in favor of their right to report in their own newspapers without school officials’ approval. (More)

2006 White Papers

White Paper IV - Race, Ethnicity and Immigrants

White Paper III - Teens and their news-consumption behaviors

White Paper II - Boys show a slightly greater appreciation of First Amendment freedoms than girls

White Paper I - Suburban students lag behind in First Amendment appreciation

Future of the First Amendment videos

Find out in these 2007 interviews what students, and a parent, think of the First Amendment in our schools.

University Schools (Muncie, Ind.) students
Adrienne Bliss, parents of student at Burris Laboratory School

firstamendmentfuture.org videos

Mary Beth Tinker interview (Tinker v. Des Moines) (2007)
Amy Sorrell interview (2007)
Video report on 2007 follow-up study
Audio report on 2006 follow-up study
Constitution Day Panel, 2005
2005 Future of the First Amendment overview

More interviews (2005)

John Bowen: Chair, Schoalstic Press Rights Commission, Kent State University
Ken Dautrich: associate professor, University of Connecticut
Katy Dean: former high school journalist
Dorothy Gilliam: Prime Movers
Mark Goodman: executive director, Student Press Law Center
H.L. Hall: Tennessee High School Press Association Executive Director
Tom Hutton: attorney, National School Boards Association
John Seigenthaler: founder, First Amendment Center
Carole Simpson: ABC News
Carolyn Terry: project manager, Radio and Television News Directors Foundation
Sonia Woodbury: executive director, City Academy
Sandy Woodcock: foundation director, Newspaper Association of America
David Yalof: associate professor, University of Connecticut