First Amendment Support Rising

Last week, the results for the annual Students on the Future of the First Amendment survey conducted by the Knight Foundation were released and have they have caused quite a bit of surprise. Contrary to popular belief, the survey demonstrated that today's high schoolers actually show more support for the protections of the First Amendment than ever before. This year, more adults than students believe that the First Amendment goes too far, 90% of students believe that unpopular opinions deserve a vote, and more students than adults believe they should have a say in the classroom. Additionally, students believe that they should have privacy from government surveillance and businesses should not be allowed to track their activity.

As a teenager and student, I do not find any of these things to be shocking. I think it is great that young people are aware of the protections the First Amendment grants. I do, however, find the order that students ranked the protections by importance in a little surprising. The majority felt freedom of speech was most important at 65%, which I agree with.  The second one was freedom of religion with 25% of the votes. These are followed by freedom to petition the government, freedom of the press, and freedom to peaceably assemble with 5%, 3%, and 2% respectively. I am truly surprised by religion's reasonably high percentage in a day and age where religion is not a huge focus.

Overall, I found this report to be a very revelatory and interesting read.

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State v Mann Recap

The focus of our class this week was a mock trial of the case State v Mann. The defendant in this case, John Mann, was charged with assault and battery after shooting a slave, Lydia, who he'd been renting. In the original trial, the jury ruled against him and fined him five dollars. This is shocking to me considering the jury was made up entirely of white, Southern men. Mann appealed the case, saying that a master assaulting their slave is not punishable because the slave is their property. Eventually, the case made it to the North Carolina supreme court where Mann won. This decision remains notorious in the legal field to this day.

I found it very interesting to listen to what arguments each side chose to use in this mock trial. They all would have made perfect sense to the jury when this case took place in 1829 but now they just sound ridiculous. You definitely can't look at these cases with a presentism attitude.

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13 Years Since 9/11

I recently read an article on a court case concerning the Establishment Clause that I find very interesting - American Atheists, Inc. v. Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. This lawsuit began in 2011 as an attempt to keep a 17-foot steel cross recovered from the rubble following the terrorist attacks on September 1, 2011 from being publicly displayed at the Ground Zero museum. 

Metal cross found in the rubble at site of 9/11.
Picture found on the blaze.com.

The case was unanimously dismissed and for good reason. The court explained that, “the Establishment Clause is not properly construed to command that government accounts of history be devoid of religious references.” The groups then demanded that there should at least be equal religious representation and a plaque concerning atheists involved in the traumatic event should also be displayed at the museum. This request was denied because there is no atheist-related artifact and the First Amendment does not require one to be manufactured for "fairness."

Now I am by no means a very religious person, but I do not understand why this would cause so much controversy. The cross is simply an artifact included in the museum that conveyed a message of hope, not some push to convert everyone to Christianity that needs to be banned. 

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Attacks on Journalists

The recent outbreak of protests and looting in Ferguson, Missouri following the shooting of an unarmed black teenager has attracted mass amounts of media attention. Police, however, are not overly fond of this attention and have therefore been ordering journalists away, barring them from entering the city, and even arresting them. This has caused many people, including myself, to question how well the First Amendment really protects journalists - and the rest of us -  in this day and age.

The free press clause guarantees that people can "publish any lawful material without fear of punishment by the government, even if the material is critical of the government." By forcefully removing and detaining journalists in order to prevent them from reporting controversial stories, officers are clearly not abiding by the First Amendment. The arrests that the police have done are downright illegal, disappointing, and make me very nervous for how well the First Amendment will be held up in the future.

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