How the First Amendment Impacts Me, My Life, My Community, My World

by Geoffrey Carr, William H. Hall High School
First Prize in the 2007 Center for First Amendment Rights
2007 High School First Amendment Contest

Freedom of speech is often celebrated in our society, as it rightly should. The actions of some of our greatest leaders were protected by this Amendment, and it is the holiest of the crown jewels of American Democracy. So too is the freedom of and from religion, with Jefferson's celebrated "Wall of Separation", as outlined in his letter to the Danbury Baptists Association often seen as part of the First Amendment itself. The right to peaceably assemble is also commemorated, with lessons of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech printed over pictures of thousands thronging upon the Washington Mall. Yet there is one facet of the First Amendment that is notoriously and dangerously under-represented and under-celebrated in America today: That Congress shall make no law respecting the abridging the freedom of the press. As the world watches the results of the Scooter Libby trial, in which the press and reporters played a major role, the question on everyone's mind is not so much along the lines of "Is the press still free, after two hundred and sixteen years?" but "should Bush pardon Scooter?"

But what is not asked is if the press, the free press, the guardians of democracy, is still free. Do they rely on handouts from administration officials, only printing and covering stories that are handed to them? Or do they perform the investigative functions necessary to keep Americans informed? Our country missed a den of crooks forming in the White House during the Nixon Administration, and only learned as such when two reporters exercised the rights of a free press and reported as such. But today, all that is remembered is that movie with Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford. Some even call them traitors, who took down an innocent man.

And so the press forgets its history. In any case, people are tired of hearing of bad news. There are no pictures from Iraq in our newspapers because that sort of thing might damage morale. There are no reports of the dozens of investigative committees forming that are uncovering reams of abuses since 9/11, some of which might threaten the very foundations of our democracy. Instead, the free press is largely sedated, content on making profits. This is good news! claim some, who see it as a natural evolution in reporting. It does not infringe upon rights, because the press is still free, it just chooses what to report, or not report.

But what happens when the press does dive into a story? What happens when stories are printed about possible lies in government? What happens when the media wakes up and pokes its nose into something the government doesn't like? What happens when a national catastrophe is mishandled on international television and the media reports what it sees, on television, what it hears, on radio, and what it means, in the newspapers? Traitors! People cry. Undermining America! Aiding and giving comfort to terrorists!

Though we have yet to see an Orwellian society form, America is at a dangerous place in the road of its history. Gone is the idea that a vigilant, free press is necessary in maintaining freedom. That idea has been quietly eliminated. Instead, the media is kept under a tight rein, like a dog on a short lease: should it wish to venture too far it cannot; should it leap at an abuse it is yanked back. When the Walter Reed story broke and television cameras exposed moldy and infested living quarters for America's wounded, it was with shock and denial most Americans reacted. But still voices called for the media to get out, to leave well enough alone and stop damaging morale. So the story reverted to Anna Nicole Smith, because that was inoffensive to all, save perhaps the dignity of the deceased. To quote the late Neil Postman, we are "Amusing ourselves to death." The freedom of the press is not under attack from an Orwellian Totalitarian government. Rather, as Mr. Postman argued, it is under siege from us: that we are amusing ourselves to death in a Huxleyan Brave New World manner. We don't want bad news, we don't want hard decisions, say those who know better than I. America needs a good pep rally to go fight terrorists - not mundane facts about the treatment of wounded soldiers or disclosures of secrete prisons.

Watergate, Iran-Contra, Secret Prisons, Walter-Reed, and Scooter Libby - these are not shameful incidents caused by the media. They are not disclosures that have hurt America. Instead they have helped it, just as vigilant reporting and news has always told the truth, from the pamphleteers of the Revolution to Walter Cronkite in World War II and then Vietnam. America must cherish and nurture the continual investigative search for truth. Bloody Sunday on the Edmund Pettus Bridge was a turning point, when the true horrors of racism and bigotry were revealed. Woodward and Bernstein were heroes in sticking with the story of Watergate, just as the men who raised the flag on Iwo Jima were. Yet this is all forgotten. And to the detriment of all, this push for good news is eroding the freedom of the press. It isn't just at the Washington Post, or the Hartford Courant. This trend is infiltrating the school newspapers too.

Most schools have a newspaper, run by students with faculty advisors. Student issues are reported, as are sports scores, fashions, movie reviews, and local and national news. At William H. Hall High School, where I attend, two editors last year decided to tackle the problem of teenage drinking, after an incident in which a student ended up in the emergency room for alcohol poisoning. It was a potentially controversial article for the paper on the topic of student drinking, and was rejected by the Highlights board of editors, which consists of students and a faculty advisor. The editors wished to appeal their rejection. While accounts vary, they were not particularly successful due to, according to some, the writer's insolence and disrespect or conversely, the student's wish to keep this information quiet as it involved several popular members of the high school who had drunk enough to land themselves in the ER. And so, a more widely circulated newspaper, The Hartford Courant, picked up the story, bringing it abruptly to the community's notice, sparking immediate controversy.

Thanks to the well-meaning educators at Hall High, I, the Student Representative to the Board of Education, received the opportunity to participate in an epic legal battle involving student rights under the Constitution. Well, not exactly epic. But the Board of Education did want to review the issue, having expressed concern over student rights in the past. The Administration, along with the legal counsel to West Hartford Public Schools, would provide the Board information pertaining to the case.

So in the week leading up to the Board meeting I read every book the social studies department had on First Amendment rights as they pertained to students. I went on the internet, to the website of the ACLU, and read their brief regarding student rights. I then went on a campaign to get out the vote - well, more like the public pressure - of students to speak at the Board meeting.

Because of those efforts, and the efforts of the student editors whose article was in question, more people showed up at the meeting than anyone had ever seen. It soon became standing room only as the Chairman of the Board waived the 20-minute per topic rule so that all students could speak. Later in the meeting, when the corporation counsel was called along with the administration to speak, I joined in the questioning and quoted Supreme Court rulings to a lawyer - something that probably, in hindsight, wasn't smart. Still, it got a standing ovation from the crowd, as I read the dissenting opinion from Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier. Students do not "shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate (Tinker supra)", wrote the justices who ruled against the student editors in Kuhlmeier. Though that was true, they held that student publications were not established as a forum for student expression. They were instead a place to learn about reporting. It is a precedent upheld, but not this time. The Board of Education decided that an appeal would take place, which according to the rules brought it to the Deputy Superintendent and the Student Representative. In this case, both of us agreed the articles had not named any students, nor were "substantially disruptive to the educational process." The articles were never printed, but were posted for students to read in the hallways. Free press won, but this case - and the Hazelwood ruling - show that it is on shaky ground.

If student newspapers are to teach what it means to be a free, vigilant press, it is vital that they be taught the true limits - not artificially imposed by a school principal or administrator. What does it say to future generations, when they see their newspapers reporting only "happy" things such as sports scores and movie reviews? The administration in this case was not out to quash First Amendment Rights, but to protect a student from the possibility of being identified. It is a noble goal, and certainly within the goals of the administration, but as the Chairman of the Board of Education noted, given the wording of the article people either knew already or would not know period. Yet is that too far removed from what happens nationally, when the New York Times or Washington Post run a story that is shouted down as being "harmful to morale"?

The free press is vital to guarding American freedoms. It is not always pretty, it is not always glamorous, and it has never been more vital. As the increasingly complicated world becomes "flat", to paraphrase Thomas Friedman, it is vital that the truth be disseminated through the free press. The whole, unfiltered, uncensored truth. Newspapers must never feel the pressure from we the people to reject stories or edit them based on "good taste." Unlike Orwell's totalitarian government, the press today is only hounded by the government, not controlled by it. It is up to Americans to decide that the freedom of the press remain as pure as it has ever been, so that the truth be known to all and so that "...the government by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."