Who thinks removing Confederate icons violates free speech?. (1st January 2021) - Carrington, Nathan T.
ABSTRACT: The belief that removing Confederate icons from public spaces violates free expression rights occasionally makes its way into the national discourse. Because rights-based claims represent ostensibly race-neutral justification for supporting Confederate symbols, we field an original, nationally representative survey to ascertain how pervasive this belief is among the general public, as well as what motivates it. We find that while this is a decidedly minority position, this view is strongly correlated with racial attitudes. Our findings highlight an important form of popular constitutionalism and have implications for policymakers and others who might view rights-based claims as inherently race neutral.