WASHINGTON, D.C. – A recent survey of college students reveals many do not fundamentally understand the U.S. Constitution, and they’re willing to use violence to attack free speech they find offensive.

University of California at Los Angeles professor John Villasenor in August surveyed 1,500 undergraduate students at four-year universities about their thoughts and understanding of constitutionally protected free speech rights, and the responses were “chilling,” The Washington Post’s Catherine Rampell opined.

MORE NEWS: Know These Before Moving From Cyprus To The UK

“Many of Villasenor’s questions were designed to gauge students’ understanding of the First Amendment. Colleges, after all, pay a lot of lip service to ‘freedom of speech,’ despite high-profile examples of civil-liberty-squelching on campus,” Rampell wrote. “The survey suggests that this might not be due to hypocrisy so much as a misunderstanding of what the First Amendment actually entails.”

About half of the women surveyed believe incorrectly that the First Amendment does not protect “hate speech,” while more than half of all respondents either agreed or did not know.

The survey also asked: “A public university invited a very controversial speaker to an on-campus event. The speaker is known for making offensive and hurtful statements. A student group opposed to the speaker disrupts the speech by loudly and repeatedly shouting so that the audience cannot hear the speaker. Do you agree or disagree that the student group’s actions are acceptable?”

More than half – 51 percent – agreed that shouting over speakers with objectionable views is acceptable, and support was strongest from Democrats.

Sixty-two percent of Democrat college students surveyed believe the tactic is justified, while only 39 percent of Republicans and 45 percent of Independents agreed.

The way college students view the Constitution and free speech rights is especially relevant in the wake of violent protests at the University of California Berkeley over conservative speakers on campus. Push back from conservative students is culminating with a Berkeley Free Speech Week next week that will feature flaming gay conservative provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos, conservative author Ann Coulter, and former White House advisor Steve Bannon, among others.

MORE NEWS: How to prepare for face-to-face classes

Villasenor wrote that how college students view the First Amendment is important because “students act as de facto arbiters of free expression on campus.

“The Supreme Court justices are not standing by at the entrances to the public university lecture halls ready to step in if First Amendment rights are curtailed,” he wrote. “If a significant percentage of students believe that views they find offensive should be silenced, those views will in fact be silenced.”

Rampell drew a direct line between the misunderstanding of First Amendment protections and the violent protests plaguing places like UC Berkeley.

“Here’s the problem with suggesting that upsetting speech warrants ‘safe spaces,’ or otherwise conflating mere words with physical assault: If speech is violence, then violence becomes a justifiable response to speech,” she wrote.

“Just ask college students. A fifth of undergrads now say it’s acceptable to use physical force to silence a speaker who makes ‘offensive and hurtful statements.’”

Villasenor’s survey shows 19 percent of students think it’s acceptable to silence “offensive and hurtful statements” with violence, a statistic that transcended political affiliation, though more men agreed than women – 30 percent versus 10 percent, respectively.

Rampell points out the trend to censor free speech on college campuses is part of a bigger problem that starts before students even arrive on campus.

“What’s more, colleges alone are not to blame for these findings,” she wrote. “Other data suggest that freshmen are arriving on campus with more intolerant attitudes toward free speech than their predecessors did, and that Americans of all ages have becoming strikingly hostile toward basic civil and political liberties.”