A little over 57 years ago, the federal government voted to honor high school students’ free speech and allow them to voice concerns about the government they’re set to inherit. Now, the Kansas Senate is attempting to silence them.
Late Tuesday night, the Senate passed Amendment 21-18 inserted into Senate Bill 315, which would require students to receive parental permission to participate in school protests and penalize districts complicit in organizing protests or lax in disciplining student offenders.
But the amendment must still be accepted by the Kansas House before being recognized as law.
Sen. Michael Murphy (R-Sylvia) supported the amendment and, during the debate, assured the floor that this act wouldn’t violate students’ First Amendment rights.
“The bottom line is we understand we have a right to protest, a right to voice our opinion,” Murphy said at the meeting. “But when we’re in high school, we’re there to learn.”
Yes, students are there to learn. They learn formulas and elements, and about their constitutional rights that they, as American citizens, are entitled to. The fact that they are still in school does not eliminate the right to protest.
High school, for many, can be one of the first times they are exposed to other beliefs than the ones inside their living rooms. It’s the place where you first realise you have free will and you begin to shape your thoughts and feelings on matters — political or otherwise.
Requiring students to secure permission from their parents is not only tedious — this isn’t a school field trip to the zoo — but could also put certain children at risk of reprimand, or in extreme cases, worse.
This also disregards the population of 18 (and even 19) year olds, who are legal adults in high school. They technically require zero parental permission to act on their own. This law would void that freedom, turning them into children again, when high school is all about teaching us how to be adults.
On top of all of that, Murphy and others backing the amendment did not cite what protests sparked this issue, but it doesn’t take long to piece together that this bill was clearly in response to the recent student protests over Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Adults in the Senate quickly realized they couldn’t control students’ thoughts, so they would just control their actions.
Not only is this morally reprehensible of the senate members who voted to enact it, but it’s also legally ambiguous.
Back in the late 60’s, students at a high school in Des Moines, Iowa, decided to peacefully protest the Vietnam War by wearing black armbands. When the principal caught wind of this, he warned the students that they would be suspended because the protest would cause a disruption. Some students still wore the armbands and were suspended, causing their parents to sue the school for violating the students’ rights.
On Feb. 24, 1969, the Supreme Court, in a 7-2 decision, ruled that neither students nor teachers “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate,” in the Tinker v. Des Moines case.
Kansas lawmakers’ decision to deny students the right to protest strips them of these freedoms — freedoms that have long been fought for.
Not to mention the state’s recent decision to approve Charlie Kirk Free Speech Day, which directly contradicts the ideals behind the Senate’s amendment.
The Kansas Senate should be ashamed of this amendment’s approval. These legislators’ fragile egos are crumbling, realizing this is the generation that will take them over. Students being able to speak out is vital, not only for themselves, but for the country as well.
This is their world, too — let them live in it.
