Alarming number of college students claim US deserved 9/11: poll

Hasan Piker has lots of company. 

More than one in five college students said the United States deserved the Sept. 11 terror attacks, according to a stunning new poll.

Some 22% of participants surveyed by the Buckley Institute agreed that “America deserved Sept. 11,” which saw terrorists crash planes into the World Trade Center, toppling its Twin Towers and slaughtering nearly 3,000 people.

Another 72% disagreed with the statement while another 6% were unsure, according to the poll, which surveyed 803 American undergraduates.

The students polled weren’t yet born during the horrifying terror attacks plotted by al Qaeda that took place in 2001, 25 years ago.

But the 22% agreed with US bashers such as left-wing streamer Hasan Piker, who infamously said in 2019 that America “deserved 9/11” and recently claimed the US military has committed more terrorism than al Qaeda.

Meanwhile, America’s college students have swung even more heavily toward socialism and against Israel, the Buckley Institute’s annual poll found.

They were asked, “If you had to choose, which economic system would you prefer to live under?”

The result: 42% of students said they would rather live under a socialist system, versus just 28% preferring a capitalist one and the remaining 30% had no opinion.

The 14-point spread in favor of socialism is the largest in the five years the question has been asked.

Nearly half of the students — 47% — said they agreed with the statement, “While socialist countries like Cuba and the Soviet Union have not been perfect, they offer a better economic model than capitalist countries like the United States.”

Only 33% said US capitalism was a better model, the poll found.

Hostility toward Israel has grown in the past year, according to the survey.

When asked which country is a better ally for the United States, 38% said Palestine and 25% said Israel, a 9-point shift away from the Jewish state compared to last year.

More students believe racism is still a systemic problem in America.

Asked about progress on racial equality in the US, half or 50%, said America is inextricably linked to white supremacy and in general most minorities remain excluded from the American promise of equality.

Just 39% said they believed America is moving forward and the promise of equality continues to be extended to more people, the poll found.

Meanwhile, 40% of students agreed that “offensive speech” should be criminally prosecuted while 52% disagreed.

“This year’s survey demonstrates that censorious attitudes remain stubbornly high on America’s college campuses,” said Buckley Institute founder and Executive Director Lauren Noble.

“During the 250th anniversary of America’s founding, America’s college students have swung heavily in favor of socialism. Alarmingly, those same students are more likely to support shout downs, violence to stop hate speech, and other tools of censorship.”

On another hot-button issue, a majority of undergrads oppose having transgender athletes compete in women’s sports.

One-third said transgender athletes should be able to participate in whichever gender class they feel more comfortable in, while 53% said doing so would be unfair because it disadvantages female athletes as “there are biological differences between men and women,” the poll found.

The Buckley Institute is named after William F. Buckley Jr., a national leader in the conservative movement who founded National Review, was a host on PBS’ “Firing Line” show and ran for New York City mayor in 1965 under the Conservative Party banner.

The national survey was conducted Sept. 5-14 for the Buckley Institute by Inquire LLC. It has a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points.