Our Lost Heritage of Liberty
(The following is excerpted from a longer article by renowned civil
libertarian Nat Hentoff, which appeared in "Jewish World Review.")
"I often speak at high schools and colleges around the country as well as
at elementary schools. Nearly everywhere, I find an alarming, pervasive
failure in American education. Most young people have only the dimmest
knowledge of the rights and liberties guaranteed to every American under
the Constitution…
"Recently, I spoke at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
and its counterpart at New York University. These bright, earnest young
journalists only knew one small part of the Bill of Rights (the first 10
amendments to the Constitution). They only knew the clause in the First
Amendment that speaks of 'freedom of the press.'
"As journalists, they will, therefore, be of little help in informing the
rest of the citizenry about their rights. If you don't know your own
rights, you will be indifferent to the rights of other Americans when they
are violated by the police, by legislatures, by the president, or by school
boards…
"I know from considerable experience that youngsters are open to learning
about their legacy of freedom...
"Once, in Miami, I was asked to speak about the Bill of Rights to two large
groups of high-school students. It was a very multicultural audience. Their
teachers warned me: 'Don't be disappointed if they get bored. All they're
really interested in is music and clothes.'
"I told them stories about our freedoms. How, for example, the colonists
suffered and were humiliated by British customs officers, who had the power
to search their homes and persons at will -- without any court approval.
"And I told them that was one of the main reasons for the American
Revolution. And that's why the Fourth Amendment to the Bill of Rights
specifically guarantees our privacy from illegal police searches.
"I told the youngsters other stories about our history of freedom. At the
end of the hour, the youngsters stood up and cheered. They weren't cheering
me. They had discovered America! They were cheering their great good
fortune in being Americans."
(From "Our 'Americanism'-ignorant Generation" by Nat Hentoff, Jewish World
Review, August 19, 1999)
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