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, Ive only touched on an actual answer to the question. Why is the ability to exercise
ones freedom of speech so very important, particularly in our great nations 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 students 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.