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  • 2016-01-21 (xsd:date)
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  • Do 10 Percent of College Grads Think Judge Judy Is on the Supreme Court? (en)
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  • In January 2016, a claim began circulating that ten percent of college graduates believed that television's Judge Judy was one of the nine Supreme Court justices: A 14 January 2016 article titled 10% of College Graduates think Judge Judy is on the Supreme Court reported: The findings were widely presented as definitive; survey after survey revealed that one out of ten college graduates was foolish enough to believe Judge Judy was a Supreme Court justice. Without much further scrutiny, the claim was reproduced by several web sites, including US Weekly, Mic, Washington Times, the New York Daily News, Fox News, and even a sub-site of the New York Times. Although the claim made for a compelling headline, it also appeared to be materially misleading. (A popular TV judge might have advised its proponents not to pee on her leg and tell her it's raining.) ACTA's results were commonly reported as having been culled from over 1,100 liberal arts colleges and universities, but the precise number of respondents didn't appear to be clearly delineated in either the original report [PDF] (titled A Crisis in Civic Education) or coverage of its findings. In its introductory paragraph, ACTA described its overall mission: On 20 January 2016, the Washington Post published an item titled Don’t believe that splashy finding that 10 percent of college graduates think Judge Judy is on the Supreme Court; in it, John Sides, an associate professor of political science at George Washington University, observed: As Sides correctly stated, the survey question didn't ask college graduates whether Judge Judy sat on the Supreme Court's bench. Instead, the judge's full name, Judith Sheindlin (not nearly as widely well-known as the title Judge Judy) was listed among other plausible-sounding monikers from which respondents could choose. One could argue that well-educated undergraduates ought to be able to list off all current Supreme Court justices, but, as Sides noted, there's no indication that any participants were aware Sheindlin was Judge Judy or chose her name far more frequently than that of Pierce: Had option d. been listed as Judge Judy, it would have been much more reasonable to tar America's college students with the results of such a survey. However, the use of Sheindlin's popular television title contrasted with its absence on the actual survey in question made the claim at best misleading, and at worst dishonest. (en)
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