Survey shows UNT students a bit more liberal than peers

With a majority supporting legal marital status for same-sex couples and decreasing penalties for marijuana possession, respondents to a UNT student survey are slightly more liberal than respondents to the University of California at Los Angeles' most recent American Freshman survey.

Steven Forde, professor of political science, polled 2,300 students enrolled in the university's introductory American and Texas politics courses regarding their political opinions and outlooks. Forde has been conducting the survey each semester since Fall 2000, and most of the respondents in the recent survey were freshmen and sophomores, with 75 percent reporting their age as 20 or younger.

Twenty-seven percent of these students identified themselves as liberal, slightly more than the 24.2 percent of freshmen in the UCLA survey, which polled more than 270,000 students at 413 colleges and universities.

The percentage of UNT students identifying themselves as conservative was about the same as the UCLA survey — 23 percent vs. 22.7 percent. A slightly greater percentage of students in the UCLA survey called themselves far left — 2.8 percent compared to 2.4 percent at UNT. In both surveys, the largest number of students proclaimed themselves as middle-of-the road in their political views — 48 percent in the UNT survey and 50.3 percent in the UCLA survey.

Forde says disinterest toward politics may explain these in-the-middle percentages.

"It could be that because students are apathetic, they don't feel that they are really conservative or really liberal,'' he says.

Of the UNT students who said they identified with one of the two major political parties, 36 percent chose the Republican Party, while 27 percent chose the Democratic Party.

Forde says this finding seems contrary to the ideological profile of the students.

"More students said they were liberal than conservative, but more middle-of-the-road students chose the Republicans than the Democrats as a party affiliation," he says.

Significant portions of students identifying with each political party agreed on many issues. Overall, 82 percent — 89 percent of Democrats and 74 percent of Republicans — said that the federal government should impose more controls on handgun use, and 59 percent — 60 percent of Democrats, 42 percent of Republicans — said same-sex couples should have the right to legal marital status.

Sixty-eight percent — 65 percent of Democrats, 77 percent of Republicans — wanted stricter drug laws, although 52 percent thought penalties for recreational use of marijuana should be decreased or eliminated.

In addition, 87 percent of Republican students and 73 percent of Democratic students believe that "moral decay" is a problem in the United States, almost the same percentage as in previous polls.

Forde says students' definitions of "moral decay" may vary, however.

"It turns out that 63 percent of students who think moral decay is a major problem in society approve of casual sex, 45 percent believe same-sex unions should be legal, 48 percent believe marijuana laws should be relaxed, and 58 percent say abortion should remain legal," he says. "Assuming that the students were being thoughtful in their answers, they may think that marijuana doesn't count as a drug, and they don't think moral decay involves sexuality. Instead, moral decay to them may be heroin use and street crime."

In other findings:

• Sixty percent of the students agreed that the United States' takeover of Iraq has been a success, up from 54 percent in the Fall 2003 poll. However, the gap between Republican and Democratic students on this issue was wide. Eighty-two percent of the Republicans said the takeover is a success — the same percentage who expressed support for the war in Spring 2003. But only 38 percent of Democrats called the takeover successful, a vast decrease in the 54 percent who supported the war in Spring 2003.
• Eighty percent of all of the students believe that racial discrimination is still a problem in the United States, and 71 percent said the death penalty should not be abolished.

BY NANCY KOLSTI nkolsti@unt.edu

Other featured articles in this issue

• Maya Angelou to speak at UNT April 20
• UNT presents honorary degree to King of Thailand in March ceremony
• Own a piece of UNT
• Honors Day speaker part of a tribute to UNT's 50th anniversary of desegregation
• Annual jazz festival begins today in Addison
• Faculty Senate hears faculty mentoring report
• UNT health center receives national recognition
• Major retailer touts UNT's merchandising program as one of the best in the nation
• UNT departments on the move
• Economist: Elite female college basketball players worth $300,000 a season
• Staff Council changes bylaws

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