Brawley Patton

12/24/2014

Right to Question

As we, the young men and women of America, move through life it is very likely that a

situation never arises where we must exercise our constitutional rights. Certainly Mr. Morbitzer

could have kept his head down, finishing out his studies in peace without ever founding a chapter

of YAL, without trying to spread awareness to his fellow students. Chris Morbitzer could have,

as the University of Cincinnati would have preferred, gotten his degree in urban planning in the

most uninspiring fashion possible and gone on in life. He could have remained in the majority.

Taking the road less traveled by, Chris Morbitzer had the initiative to stand up in the middle of a

hustling and bustling campus and lend his voice, his ideas to the generation around him that

would one day run the world. In an attempt to make his classmates more aware, an effort to

improve his own community by spreading his most precious ideas to those around him, he

discovered a ruthlessly oppressive side to his beloved school which would combat him at every

turn as he tried to circulate flyers, recruit members or in any way spread the message of his

organization. A young man going out of his way to spread political awareness was not praised or

held to the esteem which he deserved, but was met with attempted restraint! As a young man

myself, who is eternally grateful for the freedom to voice my own opinions, to express myself

within reason and push the boundaries of the status quo by doing so, I cannot stomach the idea of

another such individual having his voice squelched in the name of slight inconvenience. Surely

that is the only reason to attempt to limit the rights of these young men and women who wished

only to speak their mind. As the University of Cincinnati said, such efforts made by YAL were

disrupting classes and disturbing the flow of the campus! These young Americans, walking

around with a clipboard asking for signatures on petitions or distributing pamphlets had to be

stopped! And so they were, for a time. It was really that easy for an entity like the college to

impose its will on a few students; just send them to a time-out-corner (or in this case, triangle)

and forget about them. Technically the schools were respecting freedom of speech as long as

they allocated space for it, and the school got away with this for a long time. It would not be for

months that Chris Morbitzer decides to challenge this daunting force and sue the University for

his right to speak freely, overcoming this oppressive “Goliath” that had imposed itself upon him.

Thanks to tremendous public backing for his lawsuit as well as a sponsorship by FIRE,

Morbitzer is now able to tell his story to the world as one of triumph instead of the seemingly

inevitable defeat that he had initially anticipated.

While I felt it was necessary to begin this piece by appreciating the story of an inspiring

young man, I’ve only touched on an actual answer to the question. Why is the ability to exercise

one’s freedom of speech so very important, particularly in our great nation’s institutions of

higher learning? There are many difficult questions regarding college, however the answer to this

one rather simple. If the true goal of these universities is to advance the knowledge of not only

itself, but its students and the world, then it must not only allow the active questioning of what is

considered the norm, but universities must encourage the exploration of new ideas. Simply put

an institution of higher learning has the duty of questioning everything in order to better

understand it. It is the freedom of speech that protects this right to question and therefore it

should be the most sacred of all rights to any being with a desire for knowledge.

However to fully understand why this is true one must first look at the opposite scenario;

what happens when a college censors its students? In the case of UC, it is met with ridicule by

the public and courts alike. After all, who in their right mind would try to limit the reach of the

constitution to any one area, especially the entity tasked with educating the young minds of

America? To take away the student’s right to question the norm is to entirely eliminate the

purpose of a higher education. As long as higher learning is the goal, censorship of students in

any way is asinine. The attempted denial of the freedom of speech could not in one thousand

years be more beneficial to a learning environment than the acceptance of those who ask

imposing questions. There is solace, at least, in the fact that when such blatant denial of basic

rights is discovered it is dealt with as it was in the case University of Cincinnati. That while I

write this essay giving my reason why it is so important that freedom of speech remain

unchallenged, it is the opinion of the American people that supports me.

Chris Morbitzer, like so many great men and women before him, realized his ability to

change the world around him through his freedom of speech; therefore I believe that I, and all

others who value their right to affect the world in this way must stand together in saying that we

will not let any power, no matter how great it may seem, strip us of our god-given ability and

constitutionally-given right of freedom of speech.