More than one in five American college students in a new Buckley Institute survey agreed with the statement, “America deserved Sept. 11.” The September 11, 2001, attacks by al Qaeda killed nearly 3,000 people after terrorists crashed planes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania.
The national survey of 803 undergraduates found 22% agreed with the statement, 72% disagreed, and 6% were unsure. Inquire LLC conducted the poll from Sept. 5 to 14 for the Buckley Institute. The survey has a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points.
The same survey found 42% of students said they would prefer to live under socialism, compared with 28% who chose capitalism and 30% who had no opinion. It also found 47% agreed that countries such as Cuba and the Soviet Union, though “not perfect,” offer a better economic model than capitalist countries like the United States. Thirty-three percent said American capitalism is the better model.
When asked which country is a better ally for the United States, 38% chose Palestine and 25% chose Israel, a nine-point shift away from Israel compared with last year. On race, 50% said America is inextricably linked to white supremacy and that most minorities remain excluded from the American promise of equality, while 39% said the country is moving forward and extending that promise to more people.
On speech, 40% of students agreed that “offensive speech” should be criminally prosecuted, while 52% disagreed. On women’s sports, 53% said letting transgender athletes compete in the gender class they feel more comfortable in would be unfair because it disadvantages female athletes and because “there are biological differences between men and women.” One-third said transgender athletes should be able to compete in whichever class they feel more comfortable in.
