Festival Reminds Students of Their First Amendment Rights

To get free food, students gave up their First Amendment rights. | Katie Magruder/ The Minaret

Enticed by the promise of free food, glitter tattoos and balloon animals, roughly 400 University of Tampa students agreed to symbolically sign away their First Amendment rights on Monday and enter the roped-off foreign land of Sparta.

While inside the censorious state, located in Vaughn Courtyard, students were subjected to the brutality of a student “goon squad” who made sure nobody had any rights.

If students were caught assembling, speaking or doing anything protected by the First Amendment, they were forced to enter jail– typically for 60 to 90 seconds.

Student improv actors also staged several religious, press and political protests that were quickly broken up.

UT freshman Tevin Christopher was told he could not sit with his friends while eating, because he was wearing a black shirt and all the people wearing black shirts had to sit together.

“I didn’t like being forced to sit somewhere based on my shirt color, it was prejudiced,” Christopher said.

But he also believed that the event was worthwhile.

“A lot of different students gathered together with free food as the incentive,” he said. “It’s a great way to teach because everyone takes their First Amendment rights for granted.”

The First Amendment Free Food Festival (FAFFF) was created in 2006 by Michael Koretzky and Michele Boyet to get students in colleges across the country thinking about their free speech rights.

The event is the premiere effort of UT’s recently-formed First Amendment Organization (FAO)– helped by Student Productions and the university’s Law Club.

Richard Solomon, president of FAO, believes all students should know their rights.

“Our main goal was just to educate people on their First Amendment rights,” Solomon said. “We’re born into these rights and we don’t know what we have rights to. In other countries, people don’t have this.”

Also present at the FAFFF was Matthew Saintsing, a junior and an intern at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Florida. His job was to pass out handheld constitutions and other literature about the rights students have.

“Everyone is signing their rights away and I’m here to give them information about what their rights actually are,” Saintsing said.
It’s just driving the point of all this home.”

Saintsing’s passion for rights also stems from being in the army for six years.

“I know firsthand that people have fought and died for these rights,” he said. “It’s a really good educational experience for everybody I think.”

Dan Reimold, a UT journalism professor, was the chief staff organizer for the FAFFF. He first heard about the event being successful at other schools and decided it would be perfect for UT to try.

“We’re building a journalism program at UT and I am personally so passionate about getting students excited for journalism,” Reimold said. “This event seemed like the perfect storm: music, food, free shirts and even glitter tattoos and at the foundation of it was a bit of learning about press and free speech.”

Reimold, who is also The Minaret’s adviser, believes that the event was successful in teaching students what their rights are and what can happen if they are taken away.

“It opened their eyes to various freedoms in a way a class could not,” he said, “including by watching the student improv actors being thrown in a fake jail and being told something simple as the clothes they wear might not be an allowable form of expression.”

Christopher agrees that the event was a success for the student attendees. “This was a great, engaging way to show students what losing the First Amendment would be like,” he said. “This is what other people in other countries deal with every day.”

Mia Glatter can be reached at mia.glatter@spartans.ut.edu.