Civil liberties: Going out of style?

The First Amendment is out. Like so many boy bands and reality shows before it, the First Amendment has been dismissed by America's youth as a relic of the past. Free speech has gone the way of *NSync. The Bill of Rights is so last year.

According to a study released this week by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, one third of high school students in the United States think that the First Amendment goes too far in guaranteeing rights. Only half of students believe that newspapers should be free to publish without government approval. Seventeen percent do not think people should be allowed to express unpopular views.

Generation Y confounds political analysts.Born in the 1980s and 1990s, all anyone knows for sure is that there are a lot of us, and we're going to matter. Now, the youngest among us have weighed in on the First Amendment, and the results are discouraging. If the Knight study is any indication, the future of this country is government-enforced agreement.

Young people are impressionable, and so it is not difficult to imagine how students came to believe that the Bill of Rights asks too much. Today's teenagers were children on September 11th, when the Bush Administration decided that civil liberties were expendable. Opposition became un-American. Ashcroft and Rumsfeld told critics of the Patriot Act and the war in Iraq that their disagreement encouraged and aided terrorists. Many Democrats voted for security measures and military authority without asking questions. The message sent to young people was clear. Dissent is dangerous. Being American means being on board with President Bush.

American students could not have been expected to know any better. Civic education in this country is largely nonexistent. In most states, lessons in government are footnotes in history textbooks or electives for students nearing graduation. The most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress found that nearly three quarters of fourth, eighth and twelfth graders fall below grade level proficiency in civics.

As schools become increasingly strapped for funding, debate teams and community service organizations have come under the chopping block. In many schools, student press is a contradiction in terms. According to the Knight Foundation, roughly a quarter of high schools offer no student media opportunities. Of those schools that have traditionally offered student newspapers, forty percent have eliminated them in the last five years.

Public schools are designed to teach reading, writing and arithmetic, but they are also given a broader mission. They are charged with preparing students for full-fledged citizenship. This means teaching young people not just how our government was founded but how it works, and sometimes does not work, today. It means teaching students to think about issues, to evaluate ideas and to understand and appreciate the liberties that go hand in hand with being a citizen.

Students must understand the value of debate. They must be encouraged to care enough to argue what they believe and to hear the arguments of others. Learning to read a ballot is useless if today's young people are unable to have a meaningful exchange about which candidates and policies will make this country better tomorrow.

Here at Princeton, students have taken it upon themselves to address these concerns. In their report this fall, the Student Task Force on Civic Values examined the state of civic education and activism on campuses across the country. The Task Force made several recommendations, including increased partnerships between student organizations and the development of interdepartmental public policy curricula. Princeton's administration should heed the counsel of the Task Force and help them to continue their inquiry.

America's high school students may have deemed the First Amendment uncool, but there is still time to engage them in discussion and debate. As so many first time voters discovered this November, the issues facing our country today require thought and, at times, disagreement. America has always counted on young people to bring new perspectives to the table, to push for change. Today, there is no shortage of questions – social, economic, military and diplomatic – that require fresh solutions. Free speech and good citizenship will never go out of style. Our generation may distrust the First Amendment now, but in the interests of taking the reigns of our nation, it's time we grew out of it. Katherine Reilly is a Wilson School major from Short Hills. She can be reached at kcreilly@princeton.edu.