Stop.

Try to envision the five rights protected by the First Amendment.

Thursday marks the fourth year Iowa State has organized events to celebrate and raise awareness for the First Amendment rights – freedom of speech, press, religion, assembly and petition.

“When we don’t embrace – or even know – what our rights are, they can be taken away from us,” said Michael Bugeja, director of the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication. “There are countries around the world that lack press and speech rights. When that happens, authority has more power than truth.”

Truth, he said, makes us informed citizens for one of our most important responsibilities as citizens: voting.

This year, through the coordinated efforts of Veishea and the Greenlee school, First Amendment Day will include a “Five Freedoms March” and “Feast on the First Amendment.”

The march provides a chance for members of the ISU community to express their individual beliefs, said Dru Frykberg, Greenlee school librarian and First Amendment Day Committee member. It will also serve as a reminder to marches of the ’60s, when Americans had to fight for their rights.

Following the march from Ames City Hall to Beardshear Hall, a feast of food and the five freedoms will provide an open forum for speeches, debates, protesting and writing. The event will be highlighted by guest moderator Bill Israel, journalism professor at the University of Massachusetts and a former press secretary and legislative assistant to a U.S. Senator in Washington.

Exhibits from campus and local organizations will also be on display on campus.

The Knight Foundation, an organization dedicated to community service and defense of the free press, recently completed a study of high school students, which showed that students lacked an appreciation of the First Amendment. Nearly 75 percent of the more than 100,000 high school students surveyed responded that they do not know how they feel about the First Amendment or admitted they take it for granted.

According to the Knight Foundation Web site, exercising and promoting the First Amendment is important because “each generation of citizens helps define what freedom means in our society.”

“I worry that high school students in particular do not appreciate these rights, according to recent surveys,” Bugeja said of the First Amendment freedoms. “They represent the next generation of voters. I want them to know the power of truth.”

Chelsey Walden, First Amendment Day Committee member and junior in journalism and mass communication, said education programs need to be implemented earlier and enforced in the classroom.

The Knight Foundation’s study suggested that First Amendment values can be taught, and that the more students are exposed to news media and to the First Amendment, the greater their understanding of the rights of American citizens. But according to its Web site, the study also showed that basics about the First Amendment are not being taught – 75 percent of the students surveyed erroneously think flag burning is illegal, nearly 50 percent believe the government can censor the Internet and many students do not think newspapers should publish freely.

David Bulla, assistant professor of journalism and communication and First Amendment Day Committee member, said freedom of the press is an important freedom that the United States – and Iowa – possesses.

“I think that the most important reason that Iowa State should have a First Amendment Day is that Iowa has one of the strongest free press traditions in the country,” he said. “What really separates Iowa [from other states], are some of the things that have happened historically in the press.”

Bulla said Iowa is among the few states that permit high school students to publish material without censorship by principals or administrators. In 1989, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that high school principals and administrators could censor student publications in Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier. After this ruling, the Iowa Legislature added a clause to the Iowa Code protecting freedom of the press in high school publications.

In 1965, the U.S. Supreme Court case, Tinker v. Des Moines, also set a precedent for student rights. Two Des Moines junior high school students were kicked out school for wearing black arm bands to indirectly protest the Vietnam War, and they took the measure to the Supreme Court, where they won the case.

First Amendment Day has positioned Iowa State as a national model for such an event, said Mark Witherspoon, senior lecturer in journalism and communication.

Colleges and universities across the country are now developing and implementing events similar to Iowa State’s First Amendment Day, said David Adams, adjunct professor and chief administrative officer for Indiana University’s student newspaper, Indiana Daily Student. He said that Indiana will, for the first time, produce a similar event next year.

“We take for granted the right to speak our minds, publicize our thoughts – from books to Facebook – and practice religion as we please, or not at all,” Bugeja said. “And when we perceive government or commerce interfering with those rights, we make petitions, assemble and protest, as we’ve seen recently on the news. No matter how one feels about immigration, for instance, the recent assemblies and petitions had an impact on Congress – again because of the First Amendment.”

Bugeja also said he hopes First Amendment Day will bring numerous individuals to express their opinions, or attend in respect of the freedoms guaranteed under the First Amendment.

“I hope that on this day the ear buds of iPods will be plucked and the cell phones forgotten at home so that students will see their peers’ commitment to community, especially as we’re celebrating Veishea,” he said.