Every Single One of Us Can 'Stand Up For Freedom'

In June 2006, merely graduated from high school in Miami, Fla. and closing out my term as President of the Miami-Dade County Student Government Association (SGA), the School Board, in an exercise of undemocratic misuse of power, voted to ban the book Vamos A Cuba (A Visit to Cuba) from the entire Miami-Dade County School System, the fourth largest school system in the nation, simply for its contents, or rather lack thereof.

Some believed the book painted to rosy a picture of life under the Castro regime. However, my peers in Student Government, as well as the thousands of students we represent, agree that limiting access to educational materials based on its controversial content is both repressive and irresponsible. In the action taken against the School Board of Miami-Dade County, the SGA and the ACLU of Florida saw victory when a federal court judge ruled that book banning was unconstitutional and violated the first amendment’s guarantee of free speech.

In October 2006, I traveled to the ACLU Membership Conference to speak about the victories won in Miami that year and how much influence young people can have in ensuring the freedoms of this country just by doing what you feel is right.

It is often difficult to stand up and speak out against oppression. But I know in my heart that it will be this generation that decides where our country will stand amongst all others on this planet. We will feed, cure, and extend civil rights to the greatest number of human beings in all of history. But we will also be held responsible for ensuring the protection of those rights for as long as this nation exists, as long as democracy is known.

And it all starts today, with you, standing up for all those who cannot, and doing your part in securing those ‘inalienable rights’ for every single person that walks our soil.