Essay contest 2008

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

• Douglass Daniel, Associated Press Washington bureau
• Sarah Falcon, communication coordinator, National Coalition Against Censorship
• J. Michael Farrell, director, Scripps Howard First Amendment Center
• David Greene, executive director, The First Amendment Project
• W. Wat Hopkins, assistant department head, Virginia Tech Department of Communication
• 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
• Carol S. Lomicky, associate dean for graduate studies and research, University of Nebraska at Kearney
• Brian Murley, assistant professor, Eastern Illinois University
• Brian Pickett, director of youth programs, National Coalition Against Censorship

The winning essay, written by Holly Kays, a sophomore in national resources recreation and English, follows.

In comparison to the more trivial things in life, I rarely think about my freedoms of religion, speech, or of the press; I honestly don’t spend much time contemplating my right to assemble or to petition the government. However, even though these freedoms don’t often surface in my thoughts, I exercise them daily. In classes I say and write what I believe, never once fearing the shadowy terror of a hostile government. I go to church and share my faith openly, knowing no reason why I should hide it. I have gathered with other Americans to express my strongly held views and have signed petitions without needing to worry about who sees my name written there.

The truth is that in today’s world, America’s most basic foundations have become barely visible undercurrents in the ocean of the everyday. The ideals expressed in the First Amendment precipitated the drama of our past, yet that drama has become little more than a cliché in the modern America. To children sitting in school, the Revolutionary War appears to be little more than an unnecessary barrier between them and recess, and adults would often rather complain about perceived infringements on their rights than think about the sacrifice by which they inherited them.

In contrast, two hundred thirty three years ago the hunger for these rights was so strong that it exploded on the commons of Lexington, Massachusetts in “the shot heard round the world.” Tired of being told that heritage determines human worth and that pyramid-style social hierarchy is the only way to organize the world, a ragtag army of farmers and tradesmen stood in defiance of these dominant ideas. They replaced the normal order of society with a dream of a country in which everyone, regardless of parentage, would be considered equal under the law.

This concept was revolutionary in the contemporary environment; a mere seven years earlier, Polish aristocrats had held the power of life and death over their serfs, and many Western European countries still required peasants to tithe their harvests to the parish priests. Indeed, it must have been a blow to the comfort of European aristocracy when a militia of untrained and underequipped colonists defeated the best army in the world. How could this happen? they must have wondered, disbelieving. The colonists, in the eyes of the European elite, were little better than peasants. They simply couldn’t have outdone the polished British army.

But they did—4,500 deaths, 6,200 wounds, and innumerable frostbitten feet later, America became the first democratic nation in the world. For the Americans of the 1770s, freedom was earned rather than inherited, and First Amendment rights were written vividly through painful experience, not memorized grudgingly in concrete classrooms. Generations have passed since then, and prosperity has lulled America into sleepy security, an unconscious certainty that our freedoms will always be there, waiting to be used. It is easy to rest on the sacrifices of our ancestors, relying on what has been to determine what will be.

It is easy, but it is also dangerous. Freedom of expression is a priceless right to the citizens, but it is also rather inconvenient for those charged with governing them. First Amendment rights allow citizens to voice opinions and effect change; to an agenda-driven executive, such freedoms simply slow things down, creating obstacles as he strives to realize some glorious vision. A public oblivious to or ignorant of their rights makes an easy target for such a power-hungry leader. Democracy is not the natural order of things; one only has to look to ancient societies, such as Egypt or China, to see this. Freedom is an ideal that requires a constant struggle.

What would happen if a cessation in struggle coincided with the rise of a strong-armed leader? The question triggers an imaginative journey to a future devoid of First Amendment rights, and I begin to realize just what this would mean. In the scene playing in my mind, dreams crash down on my head as my desire to write is twisted to the manufacture of meaningless propaganda. A gloved hand forces my own away from writing what is true, and I no longer feel the joy that comes with transcribing the ring of truth to paper. In the absence of the joy, my finger tapping becomes something closer to torture.

Then, thankfully, I realize that none of this has happened in America, at least not yet. I am still able o enjoy the rights that the blue-coated men in history books bled for so long ago, and as long as Americans continue to assert the human right to a voice, the First Amendment will continue to stand. As I sit down and write, I know that the words on the paper are my own true thoughts. They are expressions of my view on the world, personal in a way that cannot be stolen from me. And equally, I know that the student beside me, passionately writing to convey the viewpoint that my page denounces, pens his first word with the same opportunities I have. There is no shadowy government figure between us, aiding one and squashing another. There is only the two of us, our ideas, and our pens. We write our hearts, exposed on paper, and leave it to America to decide.