Slashdot Mirror
U.S. Kids Don't Understand First Amendment
l4m3z0r writes "This rather alarming article discusses a study of high-school students in which they were asked about censorship, protected speech, and other aspects of the first amendment. The results are extremely worrisome: "Only half of the students said newspapers should be allowed to publish freely without government approval of stories." and this "Three in four students said flag burning is illegal. It's not. About half the students said the government can restrict any indecent material on the Internet. It can't.".."
I am a high school student. In one of my classes, we have bi-monthly discussions about current events that last the entire period. It amazes me how little some students know about our government. And to be honest, I can't blame them. The only time we ever studied the government was in 8th grade civics. Sure you can take Government class, but there are no other mandatory classes that teach students about our government in my school district.
>The constitution also doesn't say "separation of .... but I wish it did.
> church and state"
It does. Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...
That is the very essence of the doctrine of separation of church and state, and goes much further to protect this fundamental right of the people than your wished-for clause would.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
This is the link to the opening page which describes the methodology and other information about the study.
Way to go editors. Please don't include actual information for stories.
For those interested you can check my journal for some of the stories which were rejected to see what you've been missing.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
"respecting an establishment of religion..."
IOW, not making laws that discriminate between different sects.
Yes, it's true. Etymology helps, so does reading history. It's sad, most people don't know history, and don't read much either.
Why is this a troll? Several educators, not the least of the them a former teacher of the year, share this view. Just because it's a controversial idea does not mean that the poster is trolling.
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
Thanks, that's exactly what I was looking for.
Well, here is the study
Future of First Amendment Report (456K) PDF
Country of origin was not taken into account with their research. That variable might be worth examining if student misconceptions were relatively low. Yet, considering the popularity of misconceptions far outweighs the possible number of students born abroad, it's not really worth examining.
Moreover, there are already sociological studies with that data... you can probably find some full-text research on Ebsco.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
In case there are any high schoolers (or parents of high schoolers) reading Slashdot, here's the FAQ from SPLC (Student Press Law Center). I worked on a newspaper in high school and despite the extreme (grade-affecting) hard work found it really rewarding.
http://splc.org/legalresearch.asp?id=3
Q: Do high school students have First Amendment rights?
A: Yes. As the United States Supreme Court said in 1969, "It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional right to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate." But the First Amendment only prohibits government officials from suppressing speech; it does not prevent school censorship at private schools. A state constitution, statute or school policy could provide private school students with free speech protections.
Q: What about the Hazelwood decision?
A: Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, the 1988 U.S. Supreme Court decision, gave public high school officials greater authority to censor some school-sponsored student publications if they chose to do so. But the ruling doesn't apply to publications that have been opened as "public forums for student expression." It also requires school officials to demonstrate some reasonable educational justification before they can censor anything. In addition, some states (currently Arkansas, California, Colorado, Iowa, Kansas and Massachusetts) have passed laws that give students much stronger free expression protection than Hazelwood. Other states are considering such laws.
Q: What is a "public forum for student expression?"
A: A student publication is a public forum for student expression when school officials have given student editors the authority to make their own content decisions. A school can do that either through an official policy or by allowing a publication to operate with editorial independence.
Q: So if policy or practice indicates the content of my publication is determined by students, the Hazelwood decision doesn't apply to me?
A: That's right. If a student publication is a public forum for student expression, then students are entitled to stronger First Amendment protection. School officials are only allowed to censor forum publications when they can show the publication will cause a "material and substantial disruption" of school activities.
Q: What about underground or independent student publications? Are they protected from censorship?
A: Absolutely. Although public schools can establish reasonable restrictions as to the time, place and manner of distribution of underground publications, they cannot absolutely forbid their distribution on school grounds. Like school-sponsored publications that are forums, a school must show substantial disruption before they can censor an independent publication.
Q: Can a student publication be sued for libel, invasion of privacy or copyright infringement?
A: Yes, and occasionally they are. In such cases the individual reporter and the editor could be held legally responsible. Court decisions indicate that a school which does not control the content of a student publication may be protected from liability. Students need to be aware that with press freedom does come legal responsibility.
Q: Can student reporters protect confidential news sources or information?
A: Some states have "shield laws" and others have court-created privileges that protect journalists from having to reveal this kind of information. However, most states have never explicitly applied these laws to student journalists. You should check your state law before making a promise of confidentiality because once you make such a promise, the law requires you to keep it.
Q: Can I use freedom of information laws?
A: Yes. Freedom of information, or "sunshine" laws, require government agencies such as public schools to open many of their official records and
I think the collapse of Communism was a good deal more complex than the claims that Reagan outspent the Soviets. The system hadn't really worked all that well for decades. The Soviet economy had been having problems particularly during the uninspired leadership of Brezhnev. Gorbachev tried to buy time to ease the USSR into a market economy (it must be noted that the Chinese are successfully doing this), but the USSR's internal cohesion, which had not been so great and all-encompassing as the Soviets had let on, was fragmenting. There was economic, social and political rot everywhere.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Well now we know, the high school kids are ignorant because they've been listening to this misinformation they find on Slashdot. The above post demonstrates the problem. The poster, speaking in an authoritative tone, makes a statement which is completely false. "So, just like the first amendment can't be altered or abolished, the 2nd, 5th, 9th, or 10th can't either." That isn't true. Any part of the Constitution can be altered or repealed, or the whole document can be scrapped by a constitutional convention.
You've got it all wrong. The principal was constitutionally off-base in restricting the speech, as it is the taxpayer who is funding the paper. He was acting as a representative of the government, and the government cannot selectively restrict speech in this way.
Anyone interested in learning more ought to google "NEA first amendment" or something to that effect. The National Endowment of the Arts is the traditional lightning rod for speech restriction by government, since there are so many artists funded by the program who try to be deliberately provocative, and so many hicks responsible for legislating funding for the program. Traditionally the supreme court has found restrictions imposed on the speech of funded artists to be unconstitutional for a few different reasons, although I haven't followed supreme court cases much in the last couple of years, and the federal courts (like the rest of the country) are getting dumber and more conservative...
Now before I get modded down, I be to remind whoever might read this that what I am saying is FACT. - bogaboga
If the school is funded by tax dollars, then the principal is indeed an agent of the government, and is thus subject to the first amendment. Private schools are another matter.
A principal does have a competing duty to maintain discipline. The guideline in Hazelwood is that censorship may occur only to prevent "material and substantial disruption".
Instead of sponsored speech, you may be thinking of commercial speech, which is its own legal world. High school newspapers are, AFAIK, supposed to encourage journalism, not public relations.
Let's try to inject some accuracy into your comments...
Certainly many elected officials, and their appointees, have hidden agendas. Their public agenda is, presumably, why people voted for them. But to dismiss public schools because of this belies a deep misunderstanding of the advantages of a public school system. A public school system is, by necessity, open to scrutiny by the entire community. Private schools are not.
The only case I've read about this is about a techer who was using the consitution in a Cupertino, CA public school to argue that the "Founding Fathers" intended the U.S. to be a Christian nation. Some conservative press misrepresented this as a case of "banning the constitution" in the school.
I attribute the decline in the U.S. primary education system to the following ills:
But isn't that about the same time they were having record wheat harvests?
Someday a Slashdot ID of 177180 will mean something.
Uh, no. The Indian state of Kerela has had a democratically elected Communist government for some time now.
In the 1980s literacy across India was hovering at around 30%, in Kerela it was closer to 90%.
Numbers for child mortality and life expectency have been similarly impressive.
Burning the flag is the preferred method of disposing of a US flag that is beyond repair. Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, VFWs, American Legions, etc will often hold flag retirements just for this purpose.
Indeed. Some years back, in the late 1970's, there was a fun court case in Chicago. A theatre group produced a play in which an American flag was burned as part of one scene. The actors involved were arrested.
When they got to court, their defense was simple: They produced the oficial rules for handling flags, and pointed out that flags are supposed to be destroyed by burning. Their flags had come from local organizations such as the VFW. They had sent these organizations the script, and asked for worn-out flags that they could use (and burn) in the play. It seems that all these organizations had discussed the request, and decided that this was in fact a proper (if unusual) way to dispose of the flags. The play itself wasn't "disrespectful"; it merely had fictional characters that were disrespectful of the flag.
I only read the first reports, including the fact that the judge thought it was all pretty silly and tossed out the case. There were, however, lots of offended "patriots", and there was some sort of appeal. I never read what happened in the appeals.
But it is fun to mention to people that burning is the officially-approved way to dispose of old flags, and watch their confusion. After all, would you want someone to just toss a flag in the trash?
Also, how do used-car dealers dispose of their old flags?
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Or Chile. A recent event you may remember happened on the anniversary of the US-sponsored coup.
Hands in my pocket
Note to mods: the above statement is largely accurate. Nicaragua, Chile, El Salvadore - read up on what happened in those countries in the 70s and 80s.
Such criticism is legit, nowhere does parent say 'America is teh Devil'. The fact is we intervened in South and Central America in order to stop socialists/communists from coming to power by democratic means. Whether or not that this was a good thing is debatable, but either way it_happened.