Should citizens be able to videotape the activities of police officers in public? Should a college student be disciplined by her university for a video she made disparaging Asian students? Should people have to use their real names on the Internet? Can violent video games be sold to children? Should anti-gay protesters be allowed to picket at military funerals?
All of these are recent questions that have arisen around First Amendment rights. Do you know what your First Amendment rights are? Do you have strong feelings about any of the individual cases we list here? Why?
In “Name That Freedom,” an article from Oct., 2010, John Schwartz writes:
How much do we need to know [about the Constitution]? Clearly, many of us are lacking even the basics. The First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University has looked at Americans’ familiarity with its eponymous portion of the Bill of Rights, and the results would make Thomas Jefferson weep. While 61 percent of those surveyed this year knew that the First Amendment protects freedom of speech, just 23 percent volunteered that it also supports freedom of religion, and 18 percent cited freedom of the press. Freedom of association? Fourteen percent. Only 6 percent of those polled could cite the right to petition the government for grievances, the fifth major freedom guaranteed under the First Amendment.
…Though they lived two centuries before the Internet, the founders knew that they were creating the first information-based nation, a new kind of republic powered by ideas and argument. To give the people who would vote for their leaders the tools to vote wisely, ideas and debate, conscience and faith had to be protected. And it all happens in the First Amendment.
Students: Tell us how well you think you understand the First Amendment and the rights and freedoms it provides. Where do you stand on some of the First Amendment issues we list that have recently been in the news? Are you aware that teenagers have free speech rights too? Have you ever been in a situation in which you felt your First Amendment rights were challenged? Does the right to free speech ever feel wrong?
All of these are recent questions that have arisen around First Amendment rights. Do you know what your First Amendment rights are? Do you have strong feelings about any of the individual cases we list here? Why?
In “Name That Freedom,” an article from Oct., 2010, John Schwartz writes:
How much do we need to know [about the Constitution]? Clearly, many of us are lacking even the basics. The First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University has looked at Americans’ familiarity with its eponymous portion of the Bill of Rights, and the results would make Thomas Jefferson weep. While 61 percent of those surveyed this year knew that the First Amendment protects freedom of speech, just 23 percent volunteered that it also supports freedom of religion, and 18 percent cited freedom of the press. Freedom of association? Fourteen percent. Only 6 percent of those polled could cite the right to petition the government for grievances, the fifth major freedom guaranteed under the First Amendment.
…Though they lived two centuries before the Internet, the founders knew that they were creating the first information-based nation, a new kind of republic powered by ideas and argument. To give the people who would vote for their leaders the tools to vote wisely, ideas and debate, conscience and faith had to be protected. And it all happens in the First Amendment.
Students: Tell us how well you think you understand the First Amendment and the rights and freedoms it provides. Where do you stand on some of the First Amendment issues we list that have recently been in the news? Are you aware that teenagers have free speech rights too? Have you ever been in a situation in which you felt your First Amendment rights were challenged? Does the right to free speech ever feel wrong?
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