Persuasive Speech On Free Speech Rights

As American universities and colleges grow their demographics, diversity and ideas there is a continued and an accelerated debate regarding freedom of speech within these higher education institutions. College campuses are struggling to simultaneously provide a learning environment that is inclusive to traditionally unrepresented students while also providing an environment that allows for ideas to be challenged and debated no matter how offensive or controversial.

This document supports limiting online student speech because the court ruled that even though it happened out of school, the school’s reason was strong enough to justify their actions toward K.K.

Students are protected by the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment right granting the freedom of speech. However those freedoms are limited as Justice Fortas explains as follows:

Censorship cases often bring about debates over students’ first amendment rights. Students’ first amendment rights are important to preserve so that students can not be excluded from meaningful works or literature. It is understandable for the government to design educational plans as a way to get its voice into classrooms, but “the truth-promoting function of the First Amendment provides no reason, however, to question the right of students to explore a variety of ideas and perspectives, and to form and express ideas of their own” (Brown, 1994, p. 30). Schools already place a restriction on religious material or material addressing current political controversy (Brown, 1994).

Citizens in America are born with a various amount of rights. One of these rights include the freedom of speech and expression. However, school administrators have the ability to restrict a student’s expression. The Supreme Court Cases ‘Bethel School District v. Fraser’ and ‘Frederick V. Morse’ gave schools the right for the administrators to discipline children when they see fit. Students should be able to express themselves in any way without fearing that their school administrators will discipline

Everyone in America should be guaranteed the freedom of speech granted by The Constitution. In 1988, the court ruled in Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier that schools \could limit freedom of speech in school if they had “educational concerns” (Jacobs). The problem is that “educational concerns” is too vague and school districts are able to use this as a loophole to get away with removing articles that do not need to be removed. Often, the concern is based on perception and image more than anything else. Angela Riley’s article “20 years later: Teachers reflect on Supreme Court’s Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier ruling” quotes Frank LoMonte, executive director of

The decision in this case seems to have left public school students’ free speech rights in an ambiguous state. The Justices in support of the majority opinion—Justices Thomas, Alito, Kennedy, and Scalia—were thus

In his book, Unlearning Liberty (2014) Greg Lukianoff, President of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) asserts that violations of free speech— whether by students, faculty, or administration—will have devastating effects in greater society. Lukianoff supports his assertion by describing cases he has seen throughout his career at FIRE. From administration punishing students to professors getting fired for clearly protected speech. Lukianoff’s purpose is to point out the misguided lessons about freedom that are being taught on campus and to encourage his audience to stand up for freedom on campus. Lukianoff writes in an earnest tone to an audience who recognizes the importance of freedom in America society.

Benjamin Franklin once said, “Without freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom; and no such thing as public liberty, without freedom of speech.” Indeed, free speech is a large block upon which this nation was first constructed, and remains a hard staple of America today; and in few places is that freedom more often utilized than on a college campus. However, there are limitations to our constitutional liberties on campus and they, most frequently, manifest themselves in the form of free speech zones, hate speech and poor university policy. Most school codes are designed to protect students, protect educators and to promote a stable, non-disruptive and non-threatening learning environment. However, students’ verbal freedom

The delegates filled Independence Hall with raucous applause. The voiceover of a Fox New pundit began narrating the scene.

The subject of student rights has caused a lot of confusion and anger for decades now. There are two different sides that everyone seems to fall into. Some people want the constitutional rights of students to be fully protected within the school. The other side believes that, as a public institution, schools should regulate what is said or done by students to protect everyone involved. This is where it gets confusing, because it is hard to draw the line between what is allowed or not. The three most interesting topics that I chose to cover are a student’s right to free speech, religion within the school and student privacy.

“Students … [do not] shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gates.”

The school is given the power over the conduct of the student by Ginsberg v. New York (Wilson 4).While students have the constitutional right to govern their personal appearance, school officials have the right to intervene if they believe a disruption is being caused (8). Institutions may not make regulations that get rid of freedom of expression, but if they can justify the limitation then they may do so. By law there must be justification to limit student expression, such as vulgar speech (Wilson 5&8). Some regulations restricting speech rely what information is in the speech, while others focus on the possible results of a speech. Many regulations on speech focus on the appropriateness of the message, when it was given, where, how (3). The Supreme Court test the cases concerning First Amendment rights by applying two questions: 1.) Was there a specific message trying to be given? and 2.) Would those who viewed it interpret it correctly? (4). Many students lose their cases because their "message is given at an inappropriate time, or the wrong place.

Martinson (2000) states that “freedom of speech is a basic and intrinsic right of all Americans, including students” (p. 145). If freedom of speech is a basic right, why is it that the rights of students on free speech is often violated by society and school administrators? Instead accepting students’ speech for what it is, students are punished for speaking out. Although in most instances where administration feel the need to restrain student’s speech, what makes that decision absolute? Whenever there is a belief that student’s speech should be restrained by administrators, openness should always be embraced and the school administrators should bear the burden of proof to show justification (Martinson, 2000). School administrators should not always assume that a student’s freedom of speech is disruptive, but

Some school officials might think that students should not have a total right to free speech. They can fight that you can’t take away that right because the First Amendment states that you have the freedom of speech or expressing yourself as long as you don't take away someone else's rights. Then you have a problem because the First Amendment won’t support or save that right. But there is no such reason to disagree or disapprove. However, everyone has a right of free speech, as long as you don’t violate anybody else's