Free contest, FIRE's Freedom in Academia Essay Contest, top prize: $5000 college scholarship

Deadline: 1 November 2010

2010 Awards

One first place winner will be awarded a $5,000 college scholarship.

One second place winner will receive a $2,500 college scholarship.

Five runners-up will each receive a $1000 college scholarship.
Deadlines

Deadline is November 1, 2010. Winners will be announced by December 17, 2010.

FIRE's Mission

FIRE's mission is to defend and sustain individual rights at America's colleges and universities. These rights include freedom of speech, legal equality, due process, religious liberty, and sanctity of conscience—the essential qualities of individual liberty and dignity. FIRE's core mission is to protect the unprotected and to educate the public and communities of concerned Americans about the threats to these rights on our campuses and about the means to preserve them.
Instructions

1. Go to FIRE's website at www.thefire.org and familiarize yourself with FIRE and FIRE's issues.

2. Watch these two short videos about real students who were censored and punished for speech that is protected by the U.S. Constitution.

* Video #1: Political Correctness vs. Freedom of Thought - The Keith John Sampson Story One of FIRE's most shocking cases in 2008 was that of Keith John Sampson, a student-employee at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) who was found guilty of racial harassment for merely reading the book Notre Dame vs. the Klan: How the Fighting Irish Defeated the Ku Klux Klan during his work breaks.

* Video #2: Think What We Think?Or Else: Thought Control on the American Campus In the fall of 2007, the University of Delaware's Office of Residence Life employed mandatory dormitory activities to coerce students to change their thoughts, habits, and values to conform to a highly specified ideological agenda. Following FIRE's campaign, which called the attention of the national media to the Orwellian program and outraged people from all over the political spectrum, UD President Patrick Harker terminated the program.

Students should also watch some of FIRE's other videos and read FIRE's mission and posts on The Torch to get a good sense of FIRE's goals and activities.

3. Answer the Essay Question: In 700-1200 words, please discuss the videos you have seen and explain how these universities betrayed the purpose of a university and violated the constitutional guarantees of free expression. Focus on why such codes and practices are incompatible with higher education and why free speech is important in our nation's colleges and universities.

4. Submit your essay through the online form below. Only high school seniors graduating in 2011 may apply.

More information here.