RKYHS spent a theme day immersed in a school-wide program learning about the First Amendment and its influence on current events.

Professor Bernard Bell, a Rutgers University law professor and expert on constitutional law, presented the keynote address about the foundations of the First Amendment and the topical, yet controversial, current situations based on this right.

Breakout sessions discussed freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion and freedom to protest, given by faculty members along with students acting as facilitators of discussion and debate. The culmination of the program ended with a viewing of pertinent sections of the movie “The Post,” which focused on publication of the Pentagon Papers.

In this complicated age of digitalized news and social media, it is a quintessential responsibility for all educators to stress the value and implications of these essential freedoms.