A stunning new poll has revealed that American young people are expressing positive views toward Sharia law at higher rates than ever as the midterm elections approach in three weeks. Experts say much of the support can be attributed to the lack of balanced formation being provided by American universities and fear of being labeled racist, leading to young people being ill-informed about the oppression inherent in Islamic legal code.

Earlier this month, Rasmussen Reports published the results of a survey that found a full 43% of voters aged 18-24 saying they have positive views of Sharia law. Strikingly, the poll also found that 27% of voters under 30 said they would support a community adopting Sharia law.

Sharia law is an Islamic code of law based on the Islamic scriptures of the Quran and hadith and is practiced in predominantly Muslim countries such as Afghanistan, Iran, and Saudi Arabia where there is a notable lack of human rights. Sharia law calls for extremely severe punishments for crimes, including amputation for theft, public flogging, and the death penalty for adultery and sodomy. It also includes apostasy and blasphemy laws that stipulate the death penalty for renouncing Islam or speaking out against the religion, as well as unequal inheritance laws where men receive higher inheritance shares than women. Women are also required to wear veils and be accompanied by male guardians in public places.

The polling results come as several high-profile Muslim political candidates such as Michigan Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed (D) are gaining increasing exposure. While El-Sayed’s campaign has said that he “opposes any effort by any religious community to write their faith laws into the laws of our country,” the candidate has also decried efforts to ban Sharia law in the U.S. such as Oklahoma’s 2010 referendum, saying in 2022 that such efforts are tantamount to “white supremacy.”

Experts like author, columnist, and podcaster Larry Taunton say that Sharia law is incompatible with the constitutional freedoms inherent in America’s legal system.

“We need to recognize that it doesn’t deserve the respectability and protection as a religion,” he contended during “Washington Watch” Monday. “That’s because Sharia does not accept … freedom of religion, assembly, press, petition, speech — none of what is in the Bill of Rights. They do not accept our view of women. They do not accept our views regarding freedom. They do not accept the foundational principles of this particular country.”

Nonetheless, Taunton went on to observe that sympathy for Sharia law is gaining traction among young people due to ideological doctrines on perceived racism that are being propagated in higher education. “[A friend from] the University of Oregon texted me a copy of a book that a professor is requiring of his students that deals with immigration and basically says that Americans who oppose open borders are ‘xenophobic,’ that they are racist,” he related. “Now, of course, we know this is sheer nonsense, but we’re talking about students and classes who are being barraged with this kind of thing, who are being taught to feel rather than think.”

Taunton further detailed an experience at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. “[S]ome years ago, … I was speaking to students there who are on the ministerial track, specifically apologetics. And what I discovered was that their professor, who was himself woke … was not preparing future ministers of the gospel. He was preparing social justice warriors [and] was radicalizing his students. Now this is happening in evangelical institutions. Imagine what is happening in our state institutions. Imagine what’s happening in places like the Ivy League. … [S]tudents begin to … lick their finger [to] feel which way the social and political winds are going.”

As for how the trend can be reversed, Taunton emphasized that student engagement with the real world is key. “[If] … young people actually engag[e] with the real world … that’s the kind of thing that can often change a mind is when you think that the country you live in is racist and horrible, and then you travel outside of it and you begin to see the world, and you see how many people are trying to get into this country. You recognize, ‘Maybe I had it better than I thought I did.’”

Taunton also underscored the importance of personal engagement with young people in order to drill down on the weakness of the ideological positions being foisted on them. “[T]hey’re not being taught to think,” he noted. “When I engage with students in universities or elsewhere, when you really start scratching at the surface, what you discover is that they’re taught to feel, they’re taught to shut you down. They’re not taught to really think about these things. And when you’re able to actually engage with them gently and push on their worldview just a little bit, you begin to see that it crumbles.”

In addition, Taunton described how Islam and leftism “are being packaged together. We all hear of the so-called Red-Green Alliance, and that is a very real thing. And both of them are coming together in their universities, in their books, in the culture as a whole, in media, in entertainment. … I don’t think [students] know enough about Islam or for that matter, about leftism to actually think through these things.”

“They want to change our country because they keep being told how evil and racist it is, and the last thing these days anybody wants to be called is … racist,” Taunton added. “What’s kind of fun is to point out again, in conversation, ‘You do realize that Islam isn’t a race. It’s an ideology. … Do you recognize that?’ And you begin to see them kind of panic at the realization that they’re being sold a bill of goods that’s false.”