DEFENDING THE FIRST AMENDMENT

Hauppauge High School students accompanied by social studies teachers Ellen Robbins and Anne Stebbins and Doreen Gordon, the director of Social Studies and business recently attended the Icons of First Amendment Freedom Speak Out Live! event at Stony Brook University (SBU). The program was presented by SBU in partnership with the Law, Youth and Citizenship Program of the New York State Bar Association and Project PATCH (Law Related Education Program of the Northport-East Northport UFSD).

At the workshop, students had the opportunity to hear an educational presentation and to meet two individuals whose families have stood for the principles written in the Bill of Rights: Mary Beth Tinker – one of the plaintiffs in the landmark Tinker vs. Des Moines Supreme Court case – and Karen Korematsu, the daughter of Fred Korematsu, plaintiff in the Korematsu vs. The United States case.

In 1965, 13-year-old Tinker was one of a group of students suspended from school for wearing an armband to protest the Vietnam War. Her family contested the suspension, contending that students have free speech rights. In 1942, 23-year-old Korematsu refused to follow government orders to give up his belongings and report to a government incarceration camp for Japanese Americans during World War II. After being arrested, he sued the government for violating his Constitutionally protected rights to due process and equal treatment under the law.

Tinker’s and Korematsu’s dramatic presentations drew students and teachers into the incredible stories behind their landmark Supreme Court cases. “Understanding civil disobedience is a key concept taught in Hauppauge School District’s Social Studies classes. Students learn that, throughout history, brave men and women have stood for their beliefs and against injustice that they have seen in the world,” teacher Anne Stebbins. “This unique event provided our students with the opportunity to experience living history and to explore First Amendment freedom at a young age.”