A recent online College Fix poll of 1,500 college students found near-unanimity among Democratic college students on defunding police, with 94% of them considered rioting and looting legitimate forms of protest against racial discrimination and police brutality.
The poll was facilitated by College Pulse and taken on June 17 and June 18, the margin of error was plus or minus 3 percent. “The sample was drawn from the company’s undergraduate pool that includes over 270,000 verified students representing more than 900 different colleges and universities in all 50 states,” The College Fix reported.
Just as Democratic college students achieved near-unanimity in supporting defunding the police, Republican college students countered with huge opposition to defunding the police, as 87% of them did not support the idea. Republican college students achieved near-unanimity opposing looting and rioting as legitimate forms of protest, with 95% agreeing that they opposed such practices.
The first question on the survey read: “Do you support or oppose defunding the police (i.e. cutting police budgets to fund other community resources)?” Among Democrats, 72% strongly supported the idea; 22% supported it; 2 opposed it and only 4% strongly opposed it. Among Independents, those figures were 38%, 27%, 19% and 6%. 89% of blacks supported defunding the police, while 75% of Latinos and Asians and 61% of whites agreed.
The second question on the survey read, “Are rioting and looting legitimate forms of protest against racial discrimination and police brutality in America today?” 61% of Democrats said yes, while only 31% of Independents agreed. 90% of Republicans were against it.
On Friday, fivethirtyeight.com reported that various polls showed a majority of Americans were opposed to defunding the police. A Reuters poll found 57% of Americans opposed the idea; an ABC News poll found 64% opposed; a Morning Consult/Politico poll found 58% opposed, and a poll from The Economist/YouGov found 53% opposing it.
Fivethirtyeight.com noted, “The slogan is unpopular with most demographic groups, too, with two notable exceptions: Black Americans and Democrats. In the two polls where results were broken down by race, Black respondents said they supported defunding the police by an average of 45 percent to 28 percent, while white respondents opposed it by an average of 61 percent to 23 percent.”
“More than 85 graduate student unions, faculty unions and undergraduate groups at dozens of universities have signed on to a cross-campus statement calling for their respective administrations to cut ties with police. The statement includes many signatories from New York and California,” Inside Higher Ed reported.
The statement said it called “on our respective universities to break ties immediately with the police departments and private security companies in their municipalities. Police, and their proxies, private security companies, have no place on university campuses … we want to emphasize the role that police unions play in the violence perpetrated against Black communities. We therefore additionally call for unions such as the AFL-CIO to break ties with all police unions.”
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