Let Freedom Ring?

Most Americans honestly believe that they hold the document sacred--but how many really agree with the various freedoms guaranteed in the Constitution? Not many, if a sampling produced last week by Sociologists Robert McGinnis of the University of Wisconsin and Raymond W. Mack of Northwestern is to be taken as good evidence. Sampled: students at the two universities and teachers in the Wisconsin public schools, who were asked whether they agree or disagree with 14 statements based on the Bill of Rights. Whether the students went to a public or private school made no difference. Nor did it, matter whether they considered themselves Republicans or Democrats, liberals or conservatives.

"More than seven in ten students at either university," said the McGinnis-Mack report, "would deny an accused person the right to confront his accuser. More than four in ten believe that, there are situations where star-chamber proceedings are preferable to a public trial. About four in every ten believe there are groups to whom the right of peaceful public assembly should be denied . . .

"On twelve of the 14 items, schoolteachers were remarkably similar to the sample of university students. With teachers, as well as with students, about three in four believe that there are circumstances in which an individual ought to be subject to double jeopardy. More than four in ten of these teachers would deny an individual the right to a public trial, to due process of the law, or to freedom from excessive bail and fines."

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