By Corey Friedman
It was unprecedented. It was visionary. And 224 years later, its guarantees of personal freedom are still seen as radical throughout much of the world.
On Sept. 17, 1787, statesmen signed the United States Constitution, the blueprint for the new American democracy. The Bill of Rights was written to safeguard the individual liberties won in the war for independence and to build a bulwark against the expansion of government power.
The First Amendment ensures that Americans can speak and express themselves freely without fear of punishment. It guarantees that newspapers, periodicals, pamphlets and petitions can be printed and distributed. It gives citizens the right to practice the religion of their choice — or no religion at all — in the time and manner of their choosing. It allows citizens to assemble in groups, hold meetings and bring their grievances to the government.
Most Americans exercise their First Amendment rights in one form or another every day. But sadly, tens of millions aren’t aware of the full scope of their expressive freedoms. Thirty percent of adult Americans can’t list any of the five First Amendment rights, according to a 2011 survey sponsored by the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn.
Sixty-two percent of survey respondents identified free speech as part of the First Amendment, but just 19 percent named the freedom of religion and 3 percent named the right to petition, State of the First Amendment data shows.
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Community colleges earn failing grades on free speech
By Corey Friedman
College is supposed to be a marketplace of ideas — a place where students examine a range of diverse viewpoints, champion some and challenge others. At some North Carolina schools, however, robust debate is off the syllabus and questioning authority is out of the question.
Just up the road in Hickory, Catawba Valley Community College suspended student Marc Bechtol for two semesters after he criticized the college’s partnership with a debit card company on the college Facebook page. Bechtol accused the college and its partner financial institution of selling student information to banks, and he suggested a tongue-in-cheek method of retaliation: Registering a college email address with pornographic websites to trigger a flood of spam emails.
It’s clear from the full text of Bechtol’s post that the proposal was made in jest. But CVCC administrators didn’t appreciate his sense of humor. They pulled him out of class on Oct. 4. Without a hearing, Bechtol was banned from the campus for two semesters for violating a college policy that bars anything the administration believes “may be contrary to the best interest of the CVCC community.”
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Tagged as Catawba Valley Community College, Cleveland Community College, Code of Conduct, comment, Facebook, First Amendment, Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, free expression, free speech, Marc Bechtol, North Carolina, satire