Abstract
Recently protests or marches such as those in Charlottesville, Virginia, have caused concern among the public regarding the balance between freedom of speech and race-based violence. The purpose of the current study was to explore current perceptions of race ideology groups and race relations in the United States. More specifically, we assessed if students at our small, southern college viewed race ideology groups as problematic in society. We were particularly interested in how students viewed Black Lives Matter and White supremacist groups differently depending on their own race and political affiliation. Overall, roughly half of our respondents reported all race ideology groups have a right to freedom of speech. Other results indicated conservative students were more likely to view Black Lives Matter as harmful for race relations and violent in comparison to liberal students. This relationship remained significant while controlling for other factors such as a student's gender, race and other factors.
