Why does the Supreme
Court limit our First Amendment Rights?
Before we started this unit, I believed that we were a free
country and our rights were unalienable, but after studying the First Amendment
in more depth for 7 weeks, I realized that the American people are not as free
as they believe according to the government. The First Amendment gives us
freedom in five different ways: Speech, Religion, Press, Assembly, and
Petition; but these rights have limitations according to our government and the
Supreme Court. A lot of people do things
that (while still staying within their rights) are frowned upon by the
government or the state and then those people bring their case to the Supreme
Court. In most cases, the Supreme Courts seem to side with the government,
whether it is state or federal, and there should be a definite reason as to why
the system is going around rights that are supposedly inalienable. It seems as though the Supreme Court leans
more towards the government’s interest instead of the people’s interest.
In
specific cases involving schools and how the students express themselves, the
school wins 9 times out of 10 and that leads me to believe that while under a
school’s rules and regulations, they are using a straightforward and limited
environment which in itself, is violating the First Amendment by limiting what the students can say. In the Hazelwood vs. Kuhlmeier case, the
Supreme Court came to the conclusion that the school’s action was
constitutional because the actions performed were impeding on the school’s
progress with education. This seems to be the common verdict involving schools
and it seems to me that the Supreme Court is siding with the school system
because of the government interest in education. The Supreme Court will
obviously side with the side that looks out for government interest, but cases
like this are degrading to students because it makes them feel like they are
not part of the American public where everybody has their rights. Why should
students be treated as less of a human being? In my blog on this case, I stated
that when this affects one group of students, it will eventually affect all
students everywhere in the US.
There
are those cases where there is a legitimate reason for the Supreme Court to agree
with the side that is part of the government interest. Usually, when the action
that is being proposed as unconstitutional is breaking the law, the Supreme
Court usually finds it to be constitutional. For example, in the Clark v. CCNV
(Creative Community for Non-Violence),
the CCNV were protesting for homelessness by providing homeless people
with tents and a place to live on National Park grounds in Washington DC. Camping in a National Park was against park
regulations, so the CCNV were kicked out which led them to bring this to the
Supreme Court. The Supreme Court obviously found the reaction constitutional,
so the Parks and Recreation division did nothing wrong. In situations like
these, I am completely on the government’s side because these guys were acting
against regulations, so it gives them a valid reason to kick them out.
Over
the past 7 weeks of studying the First Amendment, my opinions have change and
my understanding has expanded. I’ve started realizing that the government can
really take advantage of our first amendment rights or ignore them completely
in a lot of cases, but unfortunately, our government officials are completely
paranoid when it comes to the things we say and do.
