New ABA Survey Shows Declining Civility, Increased Support for Compromise
April 28, 2023
An overwhelming majority of U.S. residents believe civility is worse than it was 10 years ago, blaming social media and general media for the decline, according to the American Bar Association’s (ABA) fifth annual Survey of Civic Literacy released on April 27 in advance of Law Day, May 1.
In polling conducted in March by DAPA Research on behalf of the ABA, 85 percent of 1,000 people surveyed said civility in society is worse compared to a decade ago, 8 percent said it was better, and 6 percent said it has stayed the same. A majority of the respondents placed the blame on social media (29 percent) and the media (24 percent), but 19 percent also said public officials were responsible for the deteriorating civility.
Even in these divisive times, however, 79 percent indicated that they support leaders who compromise rather than stand their ground until they win. Support for compromise was strongest in the areas of infrastructure (75 percent), immigration reform (70 percent), and gun rights (53 percent) but weakest in voting rights and reproductive rights, with 57 percent and 45 percent of respondents opposed to compromise, respectively.
Using questions from the U.S. Naturalization Test, the survey also tested respondents’ knowledge of U.S. democracy. Poll respondents continued to score well on many of the basic questions, with 69 percent correctly stating that each of the three branches of government can check the powers of the other two. A majority (59 percent) correctly named John Roberts as the current chief justice of the Supreme Court, but an increasing number of respondents each year think Clarence Thomas holds the position (19 percent this year).
Only 41 percent of respondents knew which federal document begins with “We the People,” and 38 percent thought that the First Amendment provides absolute protection for anything they say. When asked to assess the general public’s civics knowledge, 53 percent indicated that people were “not very informed,” while 17 percent said the public was “not at all informed.”
The ABA presented the survey at a virtual panel discussion led by ABA President Deborah Enix-Ross and featuring Donna Hicks, an associate at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University and author of Leading With Dignity: How to Create a Culture That Brings Out the Best in People; Eugene Meyer, president and CEO of the Federalist Society; and Judge Adrienne C. Nelson of the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon and chair of the ABA Cornerstones of Democracy Commission.
The panelists found the poll results unsurprising, agreeing with the observation that social media was a significant contributor to the current decline in civility. “I turn on the news or go into my social media feed and there’s always reporting on some kind of uncivil behavior. I would call it undignified because [the] lens through which I look at the world is through dignity,” Hicks said.
“I think the emphasis on civility is important, and I think it’s important for lawyers to take the lead, because who gets hurt by the lack of civility? The short answer is everybody because we learn less about what other people think. We learn less about their good ideas, we hear more about their bad ideas,” Meyer said. “If you look at social media, you quickly learn that conservatives hate the poor and liberals hate the country, and in 99 cases out of a hundred that’s simply not true.”
Hicks challenged participants to consider how their own attitudes contribute to conflict rather than compromise. “Where are you stuck? Where do you need to loosen your grip on your need to be right?” she said.
Nelson described the process of establishing a more effective civil discourse though listening sessions in which she and her fellow judges heard from the community about the administration of justice. It was a stressful experience for some of her colleagues, Nelson said, but one that also increased confidence in the court.
“It wasn’t comfortable for everyone, but we genuinely wanted to hear and were open to making changes to make our system what it should be,” Nelson said. The response has been so positive that the process has since been replicated throughout state government departments. “It’s kind of become the norm for there to be community input. It created more trust and confidence. It helped a lot,” she added.
“Learning how our government works and developing an understanding of these three great cornerstones of democracy [civics, civility, and collaboration] inevitably will help us build a better society,” said Enix-Ross. “The results [of the survey] will be used to promote civic learning and illuminate public attitudes toward critical issues in American democracy.”
