A recent daily newspaper carried a survey of student and teachers’ thinking about First Amendment rights - you know - those things we’ve been guaranteed since our Constitution was passed over 240 years ago.

 

 The source was the Knight Foundation, based on surveys of 10,463 students and 588 teachers.

 

Students and teachers (I don’t know where they were from, whether they were high school or collegians) were asked to prioritize in importance those five essential First Amendment rights.

 

I asked my Citizen staffers to do the same in our Wednesday meeting.

 

“Name these five constitutional rights,” I asked.

 

One by one, we were able to name them:

  Freedom of Speech;

  Freedom of the Press;

  Freedom of Religion;

  Freedom to Assemble;

  Freedom to Petition.

 

Then, as the students were asked in the survey, I  encouraged my people to prioritize them, in order of importance.

 

And, that they did.

 

Freedom of Speech, they generally offered as a most-important; And, Freedom of Religion was a second-most suggestion; Then, the others, in a mixture of priorities. 

 

A jolt of terror went through my system.

 

“Why wasn’t Freedom of the Press a more highly-prioritized right - from the students, teachers and my staffers?” I asked myself.

 

Perhaps I am a little too up-tight when it comes to protecting our Fourth Estate right at the newspaper office. 

 

“Maybe it’s because of some bad press?” one of the staffers suggested. That may be, I privately reasoned, because some media stand out for other than community reasons.

 

The larger question, which I put to my group at the end of the discussion, was, how can any of these First Amendment rights be prioritized?

 

If people are prioritizing their First Amendment rights, then they are saying some are not as important as others - and “in a pinch,” would sacrifice them for the others?

If you think Freedom of Speech is so important, why is it not as important to Petition, so you can speak?

 

If you think Religion is so important, why is it not as important to Assemble, so you can practice religion?

 

And of course, read the weekly newspaper? Or any distributed material?

 

By the way, Freedom of Speech received 65% of the student and 40% of the teachers’ votes as most-important; Freedom of Religion received 25% of the student and 42% of the teachers’ votes as second-most-important; Freedom of the Press, the Right to Assemble and Right to Petition received single digit percentages of support.

 

Makes me shudder.

 

Each of them should have received 20% of the votes.

 

In America, we cannot practice one in lieu of another.

 

This would make for a great discussion  in your club or organization - or high school civics class.

 

Go for it.