While surfing the net, I found the first amendment schools website. Younger members of America's Debate can take a quiz to see how "friendly" their school is with the first amendment. We've all heard stories about student newspapers being censored rightly or wrongly for material they published. Some material students have published in the past crossed the line and became libel, rather than free speech. At the same time, if students are taught to be docile and obedient, then how will they correct wrongs in the world later on?

Questions for debate

1.)Are our schools doing an adequate job of teaching students about the first amendment?

2.)How should schools be dealt with if they don't respect the student body and their right to free speech?

3.)If you are out of high school-have you seen high schoolers exercise their rights? If you're a high schooler-how have you or your friends tried to exercise your rights in a thoughtful and constructive way?

Question 1.
Most schools are doing a good or adequate job at teaching the first amendment, though it really does depend on the teachers and the staff of the school.
Question 2.
Most students dont use the first amendment and their right to free speech in a good way, most students in slang and threating or worshiping manners. (eg. I know a kid in highschool who threatens people with the nazis and other parties that are not exactly accepted in todays society).
Question 3.
Me and my friends acctually do exercise our rights in a good way. Some of my friends acctually ran for school president and had things that she would change that my acctually help the school.

Where to begin... ah, senior year of high school a student wrote a very well written satire about the faculty and posted it around campus. It was truthful, tasteful, contained nothing illegal or against school policy, yet it was torn down the next day and the student recieved a suspension. The school claimed that the satire was inflamatory and attacked the authority of the administration. Wow... can we say "down with king George?" (in this case, not bush, but the principal)

I am not sure about how well the school system teaches the first amendment- but like with all "rights"- there is an age of full responsiblity and culpability. Those under 18 basically don't have a right to free speech, to vote, to own arms, etc etc.

The school is perfectly within it's rights of determining what their guidelines are to free speech, and have a right to be as capricious and arbitrary as they wish.

Those CHILDREN not in the military under the age of 18 are to be seen and NOT heard LOL

Contrary to popular belief, minors don't really have many rights. They're the most overlooked constituency of the US. Why? Well for one they don't vote (I'm not advocating that they should, see other thread). And secondly, for the most part, minors get treated decently so there's nothing to complain about(that is, for the most part). When it comes to free speech in schools though...I've seen a lot of speech get trampled on. I've seen art projects torn down because they contained frontal nudity. I've seen students recieve suspsensions for those very same projects. And to think that normally art is protected under free speech laws. I've seen students get suspended for printing satire in the school paper. I've seen students given detention for silent protests.
I've seen all of this, and at one high school. The one I went to.

I've also seen blatantly illegal locker searches. Cops who just decide they're going to run a drug dog down a line of lockers.

No adult would tolerate any of this. Yet... it occurs to minors on a daily basis throughout classrooms around america. The parents and citizens who consider the above mentioned violations as legitimate and for the "protection" of students are endorsing a double standard when it comes to the very freedoms that make this country what it is.
*edited to change any to many in first sentence

Depends on how you define "adequate". I would say no. Many people (of all ages) do not understand that the 1st Amendment applies only to government actions ("Congress shall make no law..."). One example: I've heard and read countless opinions by graduates of the government school monopoly that Clear Channel (a privately owned business) "violated" Howard Stern's 1st Amendment rights when they stopped carrying his radio show on their stations. He was selling them his services and they stopped buying. The 1st Amendment does not apply.

The subsequent action (fines etc...) by the FCC (government) against Howard is a separate matter entirely (Interesting topic for another thread- Should the FCC fine Oprah Winfrey for discussing oral and anal sex on her show, or is Howard a "special case?")

Another observation: Only students in the government school monopoly are "granted" their 1st Amendment rights (if you believe minors can claim them). Students who do not recieve government "education" forfeit these rights (well, actually their parents do on their children's behalf) and are subject to the "tyranny" of the non-government learning facilities in whose hands their parents have placed them.

Edited to add:



Really? When I was in Jr. High (late 70's) I saw my mother tear down my Farrah Fawcett poster because her nipples were showing.

Public schools today attempt to sedate the mind as much as the television. I had many uninteresting teachers throughout the years, and I've had some great ones. It's one of those instances where one has to be curious enough to venture out the comfort zone and experience the world much to the way I like to think I have. In becoming your ideal, you supersede it. The greatest part about becoming a millionaire is not the million dollars, but the path to that million dollars (or so it is said). Many people are docile and are easily led.


Some perhaps do. Coming from personal experience, I don't quite think we did.


Well, since I recognize that many schools are run much like a gulag, I would look at the top management. Who are the problem administrators? Then, who are the problem teachers who are hellbent on a powertrip? These who don't have a firm grasp of the rights granted by the government that hires these people to teach should be removed and look for work elsewhere.


I have seen/heard high-schoolers exercise such rights, playing the "Penis Game" (you know, where you shout the word "Penis!" at ever-increasing decibel levels). I know I did the same thing. And I do remember when my senior literature class was told that we could not go to a lecture by the local university professor about the complete fiasco of book-banning that came down swift and hard from the school board my senior year, all of us (with the help of our teachers) got permission to go through parents sending in notes. Even with the parental note, I still got grief from the administration. (They said they didn't want us there because Irish Coffee would be served, as if we weren't already halfway to cirrhosis by then). Dr. Clancy correlated James Joyce and the backlash he received to that of the books that were banned by the Savannah-Chatham County School Board (may they all rot in hell) because of one parent not liking the subject matter and the profanity, blah blah blah. (The books banned were: Pat Conroy's The Lords of Discipline, Ursula Hegi's Stones from the River and a couple others I can't remember. Where was all the uproar when we read Run With the Horsemen by Ferrol Sams? It's much more "profane." Or The Centaur which describes Aphrodite having sex with a horse).

Ok, I ran off on a tangent there. I do think that the free-thinking students often try to express dissent with the system and/or exercise free speech, but often are met with authoritative power either at the teacher, principal, or school board levels. And besides, who's going to pay attention to the pizza-faced teenagers, anyways? All they do is play video games and listen to loud music, it's not as if they think or anything.

Very interesting story Cobra! I knew an english teacher who retired after teaching thirty-two years. When he was relatively young, the school had a rash of pregnancies that just threw the small town into fits(this was the early '70s in a town that continues to live in teh '50s) The teacher was accosted by an angry parent during parent-teachers conference. The big, scowling farmer jabbed his finger at my teacher friend adn said that it was he who was responsible for the town pregnancies. Taken back, the teacher asked for clarification. "Well, it's easy!" said the farmer; "You had them read The Scarlet Letter and now they're all pregnant!" I still get such a laugh from that story.

Your episode is a great example of first amendment rights and kids taking on the powers that be for them. While they may not win all the time, at least there are some good "disturbers" out there.