Judge Judy on Supreme Court? Headlines flub college grad ‘belief’

The American Council of Trustees and Alumni got more attention than it bargained for in posting a survey on college graduates’ civic knowledge.

Headlines rocketed around the world: Nearly 10 percent of college graduates think Judge Judy is on the Supreme Court!

Of course, that’s not what they believe, as The Washington Post noted.

The survey never mentioned “Judge Judy.” It asked for respondents to pick out the Supreme Court justice from four names, including Judith Sheindlin. Some 9.6 percent of college grads took a shine to Sheindlin.

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Here’s the survey question where the “10% of college grads think Judge Judy is on Supreme Court” thing came from. pic.twitter.com/GciYOpFuDF

— Dan McQuade (@dhm) January 20, 2016

But the survey highlighted “a crisis in American civic education” — that recent college graduates are ignorant of American history.

“They cannot identify the term lengths of members of Congress, the substance of the First Amendment, or the origin of the separation of powers,” it said. “They do not know the Father of the Constitution.”