Living the First Amendment is hard work – NUVO Newsweekly

The Bill of Rights surely ranks as one of the most difficult documents for us, as Americans, to contend with.

Theres enough in that list of 10 rights to make each of us a little uncomfortable, depending on your political persuasion.

Me? I get hung up on the Second Amendment. I dislike guns and I have seen how much damage they can unleash on families and communities. Just ask the parents at Sandy Hook.

But its there and like it or not we, as a community, have to follow the law as interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court no matter how wrong-headed we think the opinion is. If I respect the Constitution, I respect the rule of law.

Then theres the Fourth Amendment protection against unlawful searches of your property and person. It provides great protection for me and my family if the police come pounding on my door and want to search my house without a warrant.

But it also means that even if my neighbor is the nastiest drug dealer in the city, the police cannot crash through their door without cause or a warrant. And if the police dont play by the rules? The evidence might get tossed out of court and that nasty drug dealer goes free.

Then theres the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, which led to the high court establishing the Miranda warning. You hear that in every TV cop show and again, if the police dont read defendants their rights at the time of arrest, a criminals statement just might get thrown out of court, even if it means a guilty person goes free.

Uncomfortable. But the law.

Perhaps the most vexing of all the amendments in the Bill of Rights is the first one you know, the one about free speech, a free press, freedom to worship or not, and the right to assemble.

I personally hope to never have to listen to the likes of white supremacist Richard Spencer talking about making white privilege great again as he did recently at Auburn University in Georgia. But as long as he wasnt inciting violence yes, there are restrictions that can be placed on speech he had a right to speak.

It should have been the same with Ann Coulter in Berkeley, California, where her speech was stopped because of a threat of violence. Whether you agree with her is beside the point. She and her followers have a right to free speech just as those who disagree with her have a right to protest peacefully.

That pesky First Amendment.

Indianas legislators showed this past legislative session that while they may love First Amendment protections for themselves, when it comes to high school journalists not so much. After pressure from principals, superintendents and the Department of Education, they refused to extend First Amendment protections to high school journalists and their advisors.

Order and control trumped the First Amendment.

Whats most disheartening about the failure of this piece of legislation is the way it undermines a real opportunity for students to learn from first-hand experience how the Constitution works.

What better civics education is there than to learn about our constitutionally protected freedoms than by living them?

Will there be mistakes? Yes, of course. Thats the price of a free press. And just as there are limits on speech there are limits on the press you deliberately print falsehoods and you can get sued.

Should that fear of students running amuck with their pens and notebooks override the chance to let them live the values we claim to extol in the Constitution? No, it shouldnt.

Some of our lawmakers would be much more comfortable allowing guns in school for protection, of course than would want a free and open student press.

Yes, the First Amendment is pesky and hard. And just because something is hard doesnt mean we quash it. Thats not how our democracy works.

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Living the First Amendment is hard work - NUVO Newsweekly