The ignorant and the free

By Gary Jasinek, World managing editor
Monday - October 9, 2006

Here’s a quiz: What five freedoms are guaranteed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution?

Done? OK, now check at the bottom of this column to see how many you could come up with. I’ll wait right here.

Back so soon? How did you do?

If you named them all, you are one in a thousand. A study released early this year found that only 0.1 percent of the American public knew all five freedoms. Only 20 percent could cite more than one. By way of disturbing comparative context, the survey also found that more than half of our citizenry could name two or more members of that dysfunctional cartoon family, the Simpsons.

Something is very wrong here. Someone should do something.

Down at Central Washington University, someone is.

Cynthia Mitchell, a journalism professor at the Ellensburg campus, was moved by the findings of that survey and by another, which found that only half of American high school students believed that newspapers should be allowed to publish freely without government approval, among other misconceptions.

These are the students heading for Mitchell’s classroom. “We can’t train them to be watchdogs if that’s what they think,” she said. Though those numbers “made me want to run screaming into the streets,” she came up with a more-productive reaction.

To raise awareness of that first, and most important, element of the Bill of Rights, some universities have conducted one-day or weeklong First Amendment events. In a conversation with Central’s former dean of arts and humanities, the suggestion came to Mitchell: Make a year out of it.

And that’s what’s happening at Central now, in a series of events called the 2006-2007 First Amendment Festival.

“If we’re going to make a difference, we need a steady drumbeat, something they can’t get away from for an entire year,” Mitchell said.

She began the effort with a faculty workshop in the spring, in hopes that freedom of expression would become woven into the curriculum. This past weekend, the Ellensburg Film Festival included a film that examined the First Amendment in the context of the F-word, which is the film’s title (declining to use that word in its entirety here is a matter of editing, not censorship).

On Oct. 17, the founder of the rap group Public Enemy, Chuck D, and fellow rapper MC Lyte will speak on “Rap Race, Rage and Reality.” November events include readings of banned books and a forum on how the First Amendment is applied on campuses.

The keynote is planned for this Wednesday. It’s a speech by the national president of the ACLU, Nadine Strossen. Her topic: Why the five freedoms in the First come first.

In a press release from the university, Strossen is quoted: “If we don’t have freedoms of speech, press, religion, petition and assembly, we can’t seek change to bring about civil rights, women’s rights, lesbian and gay rights, we can’t protect religious minorities. Workers can’t organize, gun owners can’t advocate for their right to bear arms, and they couldn’t exercise their freedom of association to form a group such as the National Rifle Association. The list goes on.”

Strossen’s talk will begin at 7 p.m. this Wednesday in McConnell Auditorium.

Fittingly, the speech is free.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Gary Jasinek’s column appears on Mondays. Reach him at jasinek@wenworld.com or at 665-1176.