Marin Voice: Teach kids how exercising freedoms comes with responsibilities

You are not free to draw Ku Klux Klan graffiti on a Black person’s locker. You are not free to force people to have sex with you against their will. You are not free to paint a swastika on a Jewish synagogue.

I hope you already knew this. But have you looked at the importance of these “limits” to freedom?

I’ve been appalled by how “freedom” has been invoked in recent years as a rationale for abuses of power and a violation of both the law and basic ethical principles. Do our adolescents know and understand the interpretations of the word “freedom” as it’s being applied in our society? They must, and we must help them learn this.

In his 1941 State of the Union address, then-President Franklin Roosevelt said there was “nothing mysterious about the foundations of a healthy and strong democracy” and that he looked forward to “a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.” Those freedoms were the “freedom of speech and expression,” the “freedom of every person to worship God in his own way,” the “freedom from want” and the “freedom from fear.”

What should we make of this?  It has implications for what we must teach our adolescents.

New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie spelled out the dangers we are experiencing in the abuse of the word “freedom” by some of our politicians and their followers (“The Four Freedoms, According to Republicans,” May 19).

Bouie wrote: “There are … four freedoms we can glean from the Republican program. There is the freedom to control — to restrict the bodily autonomy of women and repress the existence of anyone who does not conform to traditional gender roles. There is the freedom to exploit. …. There is the freedom to censor — to suppress ideas that challenge and threaten the ideologies of the ruling class. And there is the freedom to menace — to carry weapons wherever you please … to turn the right of self-defense into a right to threaten other people.”

Students could examine both Bouie and Roosevelt’s comments and then follow the news for the week to see how the word is being invoked.

Teachers could use a hoax to bring this home directly.  Perhaps pass out a fake directive from your school principal (approved by the principal first) indicating that all stories for student publishing will be reviewed. This could be part of a history lesson focusing on moments in history in which the rights of individuals were severely limited. There are many examples in our history, such as the Espionage Act of 1917, limiting free speech during World War I.

Ask them how they’d feel about Amanda Gorman’s inauguration poem being banned from use in their school. Follow that with the story of it being banned by a Miami-Dade County school board after the objection of a single parent. Then explore with them how the belief that censoring reading material is a freedom and not a restriction of freedom has led to banning books in the United States. Share the information that during the first half of the 2022-23 school year, the index of school book bans provided by literacy group PEN America lists 1,477 instances of individual books banned, affecting 874 titles.

Have a student debate on this topic: Should women be guaranteed a choice regarding termination of a pregnancy?

Finally, discuss what they can do. This includes responses to efforts by local individuals or groups if they pressure school boards to interfere with reading materials. Similarly, have them research online organizations that are working to increase gun control after discussing the contrast between the freedom to own a gun with the freedom from fear to which Roosevelt alluded.

Please remember that there aren’t always two legitimate sides to an argument. Beliefs and actions that threaten democracy have no legitimate rationale. Teachers have an obligation to do what they can to help protect democracy.

The danger to freedom as defined by Franklin Roosevelt is real and is happening in some parts of California. It could happen in Marin tomorrow.