RIDGEFIELD, CT — Nora Kallusky, a senior at Ridgefield High School, won first prize and a $1,000 award in the 2026 Connecticut Foundation for Open Government’s Forrest Palmer High School Essay Contest.
Kallusky’s essay examined debate over hate speech and the First Amendment following the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
"What stood out to me was not just what people said, but how quickly reactions shifted depending on who was speaking," she wrote. "People who often criticized cancel culture suddenly supported consequences for speech they found offensive. It made me question whether free speech is truly a principle we believe in, or something we defend only when it is convenient."
Kallusky wrote that her grandparents lived in Argentina during the military dictatorship of the 1970s, making free-speech rights personal to her.
"If we only defend free speech when we agree with it, then it is no longer something we can all rely on. It becomes something we apply selectively, depending on who is speaking," she wrote. "My family’s history makes that danger feel real."
Kallusky's essay was selected from 70 entries submitted by students from high schools across Connecticut.
Students were asked to address one of three First Amendment topics: hate speech, the free-speech rights of non-citizens on college campuses, and journalists' access to the White House and Air Force One.
Two students shared second-place honors and received $500 prizes: Mayumi Iwai of Greenwich High School and Prithika Venugopal of Rocky Hill High School.
Mayumi wrote about the arrest of a Tufts University Ph.D. student whose visa was revoked after she wrote an opinion piece criticizing the university’s response to the war in Gaza.
Mayumi challenged the argument that visas can be revoked for expressing opinions deemed in conflict with American interests.
"If 'American interests' become the standard for permissible speech, then free expression is no longer a right—it becomes a conditional privilege dependent on political alignment," Mayumi wrote. "This undermines the very purpose of the First Amendment, which exists precisely to protect unpopular or dissenting views from government suppression."
Prithika also addressed the Tufts case, writing that constitutional protections apply to all people in the United States, not only citizens.
"If the government only revokes visas from students who speak out on one side of the Gaza conflict, while leaving students with opposing views untouched, that is in no way neutral enforcement," Prithika wrote.
Third place and a $300 prize went to Caitlin Pinedo of West Haven High School.
Four additional West Haven High School students — Juan Florez Sanchez, Quindaya Mouzon, Martha Agustin and Jessica Ngo — received honorable mention awards.
The contest is named for the late Forrest Palmer, former editor and publisher of the News-Times in Danbury, who launched the competition in 2000 while serving as president of the Connecticut Foundation for Open Government board.
The Connecticut Foundation for Open Government is a nonprofit educational organization founded in 1991 that promotes open and transparent government.
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