On February 11th, 2025, the Associated Press released an article about a ban on their reporters from the Oval Office, breaking years of tradition and potentially even going against the Constitution. Immediately after, Julie Pace, the AP’s Senior Vice President and Executive Editor, put out a statement deeming this action an attack on the First Amendment. The Associated Press is right. President Donald Trump, has already frequently violated our First Amendment in his second term. Trump and many of his supporters would disagree with me, of course. Trump was quoted saying, “I have stopped all government censorship and brought back free speech in America. It’s back”. This would be an absolutely incredible thing if it were true. Since the campaign trail, President Trump has repeatedly criticized news organizations that report facts that paint him as an unflattering leader. It’s no secret that Trump cries “fake news” any time he doesn’t like something he reads, but now he has simply gone too far. He wants to forcefully shut down protests he doesn’t believe in, stop college-aged students from speaking out against him, and prevent news organizations that don’t praise the ground he walks on from government buildings. He has even gone as far as calling certain media groups “the enemy of the people”. Trump acts in a manner so clearly un-American when it comes to free speech that it feels like the only speech he considers free is his own and thatof like-minded individuals. Now, as college students at a public university, we’re being faced with our own challenges regarding the President’s words and actions: our right to protest is being directly attacked. On March 4th, President Trump took to his Truth Social account, declaring that college students who “illegally protest” will be “imprisoned/sent permanently sent back to the country from which they came”. As an American, it is mind-boggling to wrap my head around the idea of Americans being imprisoned for using our constitutional right to protest. As for “illegal protest,” he seemed to care little about the legality of the January 6th Insurrection. He has even issued pardons for the criminals who were arrested because of their actions on January 6th. Making things even harder, it feels like our representatives and senators are just idling by while our rights are threatened. So what are we supposed to do? How are we supposed to protect our freedom of speech? Well, one thing you can do is call our representatives. Dial the phone, demand that the Senate and the House of Representatives represent the freedoms of the people and the Constitution. Silence doesn’t help any of us, it just lets the wheel keep turning. If we want to slow things down to try to keep our rights and our freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment, we need to speak up and talk to people in power and demand that they listen. It is their job to listen and our job to speak. We not only have the right to do so but the responsibility to do so.
