From the Founding Fathers to Vietnam War protests, freedom of speech has evolved through each generation. A guest speaker for the Black Lives Matter Speaker Series, Jeremy Woodson is a communications strategist at Idaho’s American Civil Liberties Union who spoke on First Amendment rights.
While careful to remind attendees that he was not a lawyer, Woodson offered guidance and considerations for students wanting to use their voices on campus.
“I believe in student engagement. I believe in young people’s engagement, the ACLU has thought about this a lot,” Woodson said.
In the Supreme Court, Tinker v. Des Moines set a precedent for free speech in schools. The case was decided in 1969, the era of the Vietnam War. Junior high schooler Mary Tinker wore a black armband protesting the war, despite a school ban. Tinker was suspended, leading to the ensuing court case.
The final ruling in favor of Tinker set a precedent for students retaining their free speech at school.
“The big ruling there from the Supreme Court was students do not shed their First Amendment protections at the schoolhouse gate, you can walk in and they’re protected,” Woodson said.
From private to public universities, Woodson explained that there are differences in protections for students, with public schools being tied to the state.
“Look at religious universities. They’re not bound by the same things because they’re not the government,” Woodson said.
He also reminded students that organizations must obtain permits to rally on campus. It’s not as simple as “colleges protect speech.”
“We know there are attacks on free speech even on college campuses,” he said.
While the First Amendment is the basis for protections of free speech set in the Bill of Rights in 1791, Woodson hesitated to commend the Founding Fathers.
“It ignores the fact that they were problematic,” Woodson said. “It ignores the fact that when they drafted some of these things… not only were they not talking about everybody… there were also discussions on how to exclude people in clever ways.”
He finds people glorifying a system and rule set that was made by white men.
“When it came to like, (the First Amendment) being upheld, I don’t think that there were like, slaves of some of these men that were like, ‘Yes, the First Amendment wins again!’ He was so smart, Thomas Jefferson,” Woodson said. “I sometimes think that it’s problematic to approach this discussion from that standpoint, because history is problematic. And we haven’t dug into that enough.”
A continuation of free speech, Woodson said he always hears the concept of the “marketplace of ideas” being used to defend the bad ones. Having all ideas out there, the bad and the good, it is argued that the best will win. Instead, Woodson believes the marketplace is something people have unequal access to.
“I would love to believe (the marketplace of ideas),” Woodson said. “But again, we only need to look at history to see how that really plays out.”
As for students, Woodson is optimistic in the younger generation’s power.
“We only need to look at history,” he said. “We know that young people, students, have made great change, because of the space, sometimes hard fought space, to be able to exercise their First Amendment rights.”
Haadiya Tariq can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @haadiyatariq