Silenced young by Kallie

Silenced young by Kallie - May 2026 Scholarship Essay

As kids grow up they are learning how to express their emotions as they go through life where schools violate many of our rights in day to day life. Overall there have been countless cases that dictate how students express emotions or things going on in their life and if it's their right to share on social media. Schools should not be allowed to punish students for what they share on social media since it is overall their right to use their freedom of speech and not only that but how important it is for students to express their emotions as they go through these early stages of life.
Firstly, it is every student's right to use their voice and speak on problems or emotions they have.This is a sensitive topic on how students use that right involving schools, however in the text of “Expects from Mahanoy v. B.L” it speaks about a student who expressed very intense emotions on snapchat about sports. Although it had profanity in the post, she did not mention anyone individually or by name. Evidence that shows this is when it explains what she did and did not do “ she did not identify the school in her post or target any members of the school community with vulgar or abusive language “. Now what this shows is how it was not directed towards anyone nor on campus therefore she should not be punished since there is no good reason for her to be punished for expressing her emotions to friends that happened to get screenshotted but overall her intention was just to share emotions on something she was disappointed about, which is a reasonable thing to want to express as after finding out such devastating news as a girl at a young age.Although freedom of speech can be viewed in many aspects , it is still a right that you have that no one can take away nor tell you how to use it. In the text “Excerpts from Morse v. Frederick” is about a student who held out a banner on tv to simply just get on television and teachers told him not to and to take the banner down. Once he proceeded with holding the banner he had then got suspended for ten days and in the text it states why he did what he did in his own words saying “ Frederick himself claimed “ that the words were just nonsense meant to attract television cameras”. Now not only did they take the banner out of context when he clearly stated it was nonsense but he even admitted he just wanted to be on tv when that is a kid thing to seek attention so you would think they would give grace since its something that is expectable in a sense from a teenage boy since he had no intentions of the principal taking it as him promoting drug use . Therefore he should not be punished for something taken way out of context and something he didn't mean to insinuate about any type of drug use .
Some people might argue that students should be punished because the content could be them displaying a sensitive topic or just a topic that might not be appropriate school. However that does not excuse anything because that is their right especially when there is so much going on in the world. How do teachers expect students to not speak on things? For example, one time in class a teacher said to “change the conversation topic” because the topic was abortions when that is a very real problem that has changed things recently. Now what this shows is that students
speaking about topics like that can cause schools to disregard our first amendment just because they are controversial. However, regardless of the topic nor how controversial it is, it still gives schools no right to tell students what they can or cannot discuss especially when it does not cause no harm to others and if anything students are educating themselves on things that will be changing their future and things that will be affecting everyone in some type of way weather people like it or not so it's absolutely absurd students have to “change the topic” when it is something that shouldn't have to change since this is how the world is and students have the right to speak about it .
In conclusion schools should not be able to punish students for what they post or speak on because that is their right to use their freedom of speech and how important it is to express their emotions. The outcome of trying to limit students freedom of speech can lead to students never using that freedom of speech which can determine how they go about things or fight for things in the future.