STUDENTS AND THE FIRST AMENDMENT
High school students throughout New York state participated in an essay contest this winter, sponsored by the New York Press Association. The topic: the First Amendment. Students were to discuss the Amendment and the role it plays in American life.
Regional winners were selected and submitted for statewide judging, with the state winner awarded a $10,000 college scholarship.
The statewide winner: Melissa J. Bykofsky, of West Hempstead High School. The Rochester-area winner: Albert Parisi-Esteves, of Brighton High School.
Their essays:
Melissa J. Bykofsky, West HempsteadHigh School
As the editor-in-chief of the West Hempstead high school Rampage, our student newspaper, I often find myself torn between where a student's freedom to express opinions ends, and the school's authority to control - or even suppress - that expression begins.
In 1969, the United States Supreme Court held that free speech does not stop "at the schoolhouse gate" (Tinker v. Des Moines), but that gate has been steadily closing upon the student press - and upon the First Amendment - ever since.
Under the guise of protecting student and teacher, administrator and parent, both form and content of school newspapers have come under glaring - and sometimes repressive - scrutiny of teacher-advisors, high school principals, and even district superintendents, some of whom exercise - in the name of "good judgment" - what amounts to blatant censorship.
True, the thought of a bunch of teens running amuck with notepad in hand and a pencil tucked behind ear can be frightening to the unassuming adult - particularly where that pencil might just write something untoward about a school policy, a school lunch, or a school bully - but these are the chances we take in society that cherishes (at least in principle) freedom.
While a school district cannot, for instance, publicly advocate for the passage of its own budget, should it follow that student-run school newspaper should not postulate in favor of a "yes" vote? Moreover, can - and should - the school district act to stop the publication of student-generated expression (that envisioned by the framers of the First Amendment, which places no restriction on the rights of free speech or a free press based on age or level of education) that may run counter to school district policy?
I will note, more than parenthetically, that in West Hempstead, our teacher-advisor and district administration embrace a fairly liberal interpretation of students' First Amendment rights, a policy that is reflected in the editorial freedom of Rampage. Could this practice change under an advisor and/or administration more concerned with preserving the district's self-interests than with the students' rights of free speech? In a heart beat!
In our search for the truth (mindful that this may be a "teen's truth," not always held by others to be self-evident), short of the libelous or the inciting, the obscene or labeling of editorial comment as objective reporting, students should be free to express themselves in school newspapers, without undue restraint from teachers and/or administrators.
Granted, this may generate discord and debate, and we, as stewards of the school paper and guardians of free press, may find ourselves at odds with school district policies and the commonly accepted order of things - that which such tender minds cannot possibly understand.
Still, I believe this to be a good thing. For to usurp the power of the student press - however heavily or clumsily we may, on occasion, tread - would be to stand the First Amendment's protection of free speech and free press on its head, and undermine the very foundation of our democratic society.
Albert Parisi-Esteves, BrightonHigh School
If you ask any of my eight Puerto Rican cousins fighting in Iraq about the purpose of the mission, their retort is to protect and foster freedom. Unfortunately, on the home front, in the dead of night our president enacted the Patriot Act that directly assaults our First Amendment Freedom of Speech rights. In times of war governments historically claim that national security outweighs the First Amendment. It is our civic duty to fight this assault on liberty.
Our historical analysis of the assault on the First Amendment needs to go no further than the Vietnam War. During the Vietnam War Daniel Ellsberg worked for the defense department and helped prepare the Pentagon Papers. His experience during the Vietnam War turned him from a hawk to a dove. Mr. Ellsberg felt that Americans should learn how their country was sucked into a war that could not be won. Mr. Ellsberg gave the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times. The attempted publication began a feud between the New York Times and the federal government in the case of New York Times v. United States.
In this historical case that is relevant today, the freedom of the press proved victorious. Justice Black opined as follows: "The Government's power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the Government. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people and sending them off to distant lands to die of foreign fevers and foreign shot and shell!" The Justices argued that the newspapers nobly did precisely that which our Founders hoped and trusted they would do.
The Patriot Act was created during the wake of 9/11 and many legislators admit to not ever reading the full text of the act. The Patriot Act has led to independent book stores being ransacked by the FBI in order to determine who purchased copies of "The Hunt for Red October," and bookstore owners have been challenged by the FBI as to the identity of certain buyers of Muslim literature. The effect of the Patriot Act is to limit the First Amendment rights by reducing judicial oversight of telephone and internet surveillance and grant the FBI unlimited access to business records without requiring even minimum evidence of a crime. The effect of the Patriot Act is not to incarcerate terrorists - but rather to watch, listen, and monitor American citizens in their activities of daily life.
Therefore, it is our obligation as Patriots to fight the Un-Patriotic Act that would fly directly in the face of our Founding Fathers' intent of unregulated and unfettered free speech and press. If we follow in the path of the Patriot Act and permit government bodies to limit our speech and press, then the terrorists have already won and my family members are truly fighting a meaningless war.