Rights are for exercising, not memorizing

   Speech, press, religion, assembly and petition.

   If you knew the five freedoms protected by the First Amendment by heart, be proud. Statistically, less than a tenth of a percent of the population can name those rights.

   Yet a staggering 25 percent of the population can name all the members of the Simpson’s family. We have our priorities straight in the United States, don’t we?

   As Americans, we are given potential and opportunity just for simply living here.

   Take a look at the country of Iran and you might realize just how lucky we are.

   Article 209 of the Iranian constitution officially declares that a woman’s life is worth half of a man’s. The civil code states that a wife cannot leave the house without her husband’s permission, even if it’s for her father’s funeral.

  Both women and men are told how to dress, how to do their hair and who they can go out with. If they don’t obey, punishments include stoning, whipping and even death.

   Thankfully, we live in a country based upon equality and individual freedom.

   In U.S. history and government classes at GBHS, we learn what exactly our rights are and how we can exercise them.

   But ironically the place where we learn our rights seems to be the one place where our freedoms mean absolutely nothing. 

   A GBHS junior was ordered to take off a simple, rainbow-bead bracelet made by her 7-year-old cousin because it was considered to be “drug paraphernalia.”

   A GBHS senior was told she would get in trouble if she created a class T-shirt for her and her friends.

   Another student was harassed by a teacher several times for sitting down during the Pledge of Allegiance.

   The parking lot is considered “off-campus” when it comes to getting something out of your car, yet magically and conveniently it switches to “on-campus” when the school feels the need to do a drug search.

   What happened to the Supreme Court case of Tinker vs. Des Moines in 1969? I thought student’s didn’t “shed their rights at the schoolhouse gates.”

   Apparently our high school is above the law.

   We wonder why voter turn-out rates are so low among the age group of 18 through 24, yet the answer is right in front of us.

   You can’t just tell students to read a chemistry text book and expect them to magically become chemists once they graduate. You have to give them a lab− a place to practice what’s in the text book.

   It’s the same thing with freedoms. I can read my government book and memorize every single amendment; but without a “lab,” what good does it do?  After my rights have been limited for 12 straight years, you can’t expect to me to know how to use them once I’m out in the real world.

   As students at GBHS, we’re given responsibilities and consequences when our duties aren’t fulfilled. But I’m starting to wonder why I’m expected to act like an adult when I’m not being treated like one.

   Thanks to section 48907 of California’s education code, students still have one freedom left− the freedom of press. And here I am, proudly exercising it.

   I urge you to be a part of the statistic− be a part of the one tenth of a percent of the United States who knows their rights.

   We’re lucky to live in a country with such freedom. And one day, we will actually be able to use it.