Most Americans Don’t Understand Bill of Rights

The Bill of
Rights protects many freedoms—but do you know what they are? An alarming number
of American adults can’t tell you what those rights are, according to a Bill of
Rights Institute study conducted by Harris Interactive.

When asked
questions about the nation’s founding documents, American adults selected the
correct answer 32 percent of the time, on average, on questions about the Bill
of Rights and the freedoms it protects and American government.

Perhaps most
shocking is the finding that 42 percent of American adults incorrectly chose
one of America’s founding documents as the source of Karl Marx’s exposition of
Communism, “from each according to his ability, to each according to his
needs.” Of these incorrect answers, the most commonly chosen was the Bill of
Rights.

“It is
imperative that Americans understand how vital the Bill of Rights is to the
future of our country,” says Jason Ross, vice president of Education Programs
at the Bill of Rights Institute. “With a better understanding of our founding
documents, Americans can see how much our experiment in self-government depends
on the ideas of the founders and why America has been an example of freedom up
to this point.”

Other noteworthy
findings from the poll include the following:

• 60 percent
  of American adults did not correctly identify the principle that the U.S.
  government’s powers are derived from the people as an attribute that makes
  America unique.

• 55 percent
  of American adults did not recognize that “education” is not a First Amendment
  right.

• Nearly one
  in 10 American adults do not realize that the right to petition our government
  is a freedom guaranteed in the First Amendment.

• Only 20
  percent of American adults correctly selected the 10th Amendment as the
  amendment that reserves powers to the states and the people.

The results of
this survey are serving as the impetus for the Bill of Rights Institute’s
launch of a new initiative to educate Americans about the freedoms embodied in
the first 10 amendments. Included in the new educational initiative is the
launch of a new website, BillofRightsDay.com, which focuses on the text of the first
10 amendments, landmark Supreme Court cases and decisions based on those
amendments, and various games and resources for students and educators.