Essay contest 2009

Thank you to everyone who submitted essays for the First Amendment Week essay contest. The judges for the essay contest were

  • David Bulla, assistant professor, Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication
  • Will Creeley, director of legal and public advocacy, Foundation for Individual Rights in Education
  • J. Michael Farrell, director, Scripps Howard First Amendment Center
  • David Greene, executive director, The First Amendment Project
  • Kristin Johnsen-Neshati, artistic associate, Theater of the First Amendment
  • Jim Killam, Northern Star adviser, Northern Illinois University
  • Michael Koretzky, University Press adviser, Florida Atlantic University
  • Brian Murley, assistant professor, Eastern Illinois University

The winning essay, written by Philipp Kotlaba, a junior psychology major, follows:

 The First Amendment as a Universal Right

By Philipp Kotlaba

The First Amendment is occasionally taken for granted in America. This country’s citizens have been blessed with a nearly 250-year-old, stable democratic state, borne of the highest Enlightenment ideals and defended domestically and abroad. The bitter struggle and spilled blood that preceded the independence of the United States of America is not recent history, but a fairy tale. The American Revolution is a compelling story that still serves as a major foundation for the nation’s identity and self-purpose, yet to the children learning about the war, the triumphal outcome is sealed from the start, the happy ending already secured. What this means for us is that although we all utilize our First Amendment rights in one way or another, it can be hard to appreciate how hard-earned our rights were and just how much of an anomaly the US was in 1776.

My father, a resident of Virginia, also exercises his rights. He communicates his opinion, and he assembles with others in efforts to petition the General Assembly. But decades earlier, he was a dissatisfied and passionate dissident in Soviet-occupied Czechoslovakia. Since the age of four, he had known no alternative to the systematic suppression of basic human rights and freedom of expression in his country, courtesy of the Brezhnev Doctrine. Long before the mass demonstrations that wiped communism from the Eastern Bloc, there existed smaller, more dangerous protests banned by the state and monitored by secret police. He actively protested. He exercised his right to freedom of speech and assembly, rights technically mentioned in the constitution but invariably suppressed in practice.

He and other suppressed peoples in undemocratic, authoritarian societies do this because they hold the belief that rights contained in our First Amendment (and in other democracies’ constitutions) are not contingent upon living in the right place at the right time. They are, as Thomas Jefferson noted in the Declaration of Independence, natural, inalienable, and self-evident rights of man; everyone is entitled to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

As with the founding of the United States, some might view Cold War struggles for freedom as a distant memory consigned to the history books. They need to look no further than to people like Hu Jia and others in the People’s Republic of China arrested and sometimes tortured on the basis of “subverting state power,” or, in other words, disagreeing with the government and being vocal about it. After all, in the absolute ruler’s view, a society robbed of the freedom to protest, to obstruct, and to resist is more conducive to carrying out policy.

Although Americans can draw upon a great and proud history, the First Amendment hasn’t been uncontested here, either. The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, which stifled criticism of the government, were some of the first attacks on our rights. Much later, Woodrow Wilson’s follow-up with the 1918 Sedition Act similarly outlawed expressing antiwar sentiments. Of course, slavery kept liberty out of reach for an entire ethnic group, and McCarthyite paranoia persecuted anyone with certain leftist opinions during the 1950s.

Today, we also sometimes struggle to uphold the First Amendment, particularly when an individual espouses an idea that we find reprehensible. Sometimes, in times of controversy or emergency, our usually implicit but disengaged support for this foundation of our freedom tends to weaken. For example, when a controversial speaker visits campus, some call for censorship of the event. We must be careful to not waver from our duty to support these freedoms, even — especially — when we ferociously disagree with he who is exercising those rights.

It was very odd going with my father to pull out his formerly secret profile written up by the former State Security agency. Even after my parents had maneuvered through the Iron Curtain to live in Bavaria, the file had grown larger, describing the model of the car they used and even how many things they had left at my grandmother’s house. Under regimes where there is no “First Amendment,” going to such lengths just to keep someone from disagreeing is the status quo. The rights to speech, press, assembly, petition, and religion should extend beyond America’s borders and beyond our own established views. As we celebrate our Bill of Rights in America, we should remember not only to use these rights to defend our own liberty, but, like Voltaire, defend and fight for everyone’s right to make themselves heard without fear.

Read previous winning essays here: