Freedom of Speech? The First What?

“First Amendment No Big Deal, Students Say.”

AP News has an enlightening article today on a new study commissioned by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. The study conducted by researchers at UConn says, “America's high schools are leaving the First Amendment behind.”

The way many high school students see it, government censorship of newspapers may not be a bad thing, and flag burning is hardly protected free speech.

I read the article not once, not twice but three times grappling with the implications of this. Here we are in the midst of a fight to protect our rights that the Bush administration seems hell bent on taking away and high school students do not even fully understand what their rights are. There is something very, very wrong with this picture.

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