2008 Woodie Awards
Flyer Staff Editorial
First Amendment not important to many high school students
Flyer Staff
Issue date: 2/18/05 Section: Opinions
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"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
These powerful words make up the First Amendment of our Constitution, guaranteeing the right of free speech. Unfortunately, a large number of high school students don't seem to get this concept.
A recent study done by the Knight Ridder publication shows that a large number of high schoolers (one in three to be precise) believes that it goes "too far" in the rights that it guarantees. What's even more frightening is that half of those surveyed believe that the print media should have to be licensed by the government to publish.
We at the Flyer newspaper find these results unacceptable. We are not going to give a long lecture about the importance and relevance of First Amendment freedoms. The only thing we are going to say is that the day our paper (or any American newspaper for that matt) will be required to have a governmental license is the first day of the decline of democracy as a whole in the United States. No free press, no freedom.
The problem itself doesn't lie in the students, but the current state of the school system. In other words, it's not what they are teaching, but rather what they are not teaching.
The study revealed that many students do not even know how the First Amendment is applied in some important cases. Three in four students said that flag burning is protected. Half of the students said the government has the power to restrict indecent material on the Internet. It doesn't.
From these examples alone, it shows that this current generation of high schoolers aren't a bunch of new wave fascists, just victims of bad teaching. The study suggests that the results would be much more hopeful if instructing about the Constitution was a priority among schools, which it isn't.
These powerful words make up the First Amendment of our Constitution, guaranteeing the right of free speech. Unfortunately, a large number of high school students don't seem to get this concept.
A recent study done by the Knight Ridder publication shows that a large number of high schoolers (one in three to be precise) believes that it goes "too far" in the rights that it guarantees. What's even more frightening is that half of those surveyed believe that the print media should have to be licensed by the government to publish.
We at the Flyer newspaper find these results unacceptable. We are not going to give a long lecture about the importance and relevance of First Amendment freedoms. The only thing we are going to say is that the day our paper (or any American newspaper for that matt) will be required to have a governmental license is the first day of the decline of democracy as a whole in the United States. No free press, no freedom.
The problem itself doesn't lie in the students, but the current state of the school system. In other words, it's not what they are teaching, but rather what they are not teaching.
The study revealed that many students do not even know how the First Amendment is applied in some important cases. Three in four students said that flag burning is protected. Half of the students said the government has the power to restrict indecent material on the Internet. It doesn't.
From these examples alone, it shows that this current generation of high schoolers aren't a bunch of new wave fascists, just victims of bad teaching. The study suggests that the results would be much more hopeful if instructing about the Constitution was a priority among schools, which it isn't.
