By Varan Satchithanandan ’12, Staff Writer

Students at Newark Academy, like American citizens, enjoy a good amount of freedom of speech. Although Newark Academy, as a private school, is not required to support the constitutional right of freedom of speech, the administration is remarkably generous when it comes to students and members of the community voicing their opinions. Students are able to make Morning Meeting announcements and presentations, publish their opinions in literary publications, and participate in a variety of discussions facilitated by school clubs. Imagine what it would be like to have these liberties taken away from us.

Juan Williams was recently fired from the non-profit company National Public Radio (NPR) which broadcasts news and political commentary throughout the United States. He was fired because he made anti-Islamic remarks during Bill O’Reilly’s show, “The O’Reilly Factor,” which airs on Fox News. Bill O’Reilly, along with other pundits and politicians, has petitioned for the federal government to halt all funding of NPR due to its “flagrant” violation of Williams’ right to free speech.

However, NPR did not break any laws in firing Williams. While the First Amendment asserts that the government cannot restrict freedom of the press, private companies are free to regulate what their employees say. The Wall Street Journal pointed this out, explaining that “the First Amendment right to decide what is aired on NPR – that is the right that Congress is prohibited by the First Amendment from abridging – belongs not to the talent that wants to go on the air but to the owner of the radio network that airs them.”

NPR’s employee contracts stipulate that commentaries must be bias-free. For example, their journalists were prohibited from attending the Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert’s Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear, which was considered a politically liberal event. (Read News Columnist Scott LaBove’s article for more information about the Stewart/Colbert Rally.) Williams continually pushed this standard with rather biased comments. For example, Williams once compared Michelle Obama to 1960s radical Stokley Carmichael. Additionally, in 2008 alone, he received 378 written complaints from listeners, many from the staff at NPR.

Williams’ appearance on Fox News, which included expressing his own views on a very touchy subject and stereotyping Muslims wearing traditional garb, seems to have been the straw that broke the camel’s back, and NPR promptly fired him. Yet, NPR should perhaps have given Williams an ultimatum – to work solely for NPR and adhere to NPR’s editorial policy or resign and air his views freely elsewhere.

Regardless, Williams’ removal from NPR has actually been a boon to his career – he now has a better contract with Fox and is certainly better known than he was before. This incident illustrates that in way freedom of speech remains untouchable in the United States. If one channel rejects the commentary of an individual, that individual can find another channel to make his or her controversial views public. NPR’s actions, though controversial, have not harmed William’s career or curtailed his freedom of speech. Freedom to express one’s views in the United States is an immense benefit unheard of in some other countries.

Take Singapore for example. Last year, the Economist magazine accused a government investment group in Singapore of nepotism for granting the daughter-in-law of Minister Mentor Lee Kwan Yew, the founder of modern Singapore, a CEO position. Representatives of The Economist were promptly taken to a Singaporean court and found guilty of libel. They were then fined, forced to issue a print apology, and barred from raising the subject again. The representatives had to submit fully to these conditions, or the government of Singapore would ban The Economist from their country.

The restrictions on freedom of speech are even stricter in Russia. Russia’s constitution provides for the freedom of speech and press; however, its government effectively circumnavigates this right. The government directly owns most print and TV outlets, censors journalists, and cuts off coverage of political parties that oppose its members. There have been numerous unsolved murders of journalists, such as Anna Politkovskaya, who wrote articles critiquing the government. Additionally, environmental journalist Mikhail Beketov was severely beaten after he published articles attacking local authorities’ environmentally destructive plans.

In Singapore and Russia, as in numerous other countries, journalists who go against the government are blotted out. In America, going against the government is the norm, at times even causing one’s views to become better known. This system shows the greatest amount of justice to the public because its members are free to protest when something is wrong. Therefore, we as citizens benefit from the freedom the press enjoys here, despite occasional uproars.

Our parents’ and grandparents’ generations have either caused or exacerbated numerous controversial issues with which we now have to deal, such as terrorism, global warming, and limited natural resources. Newark Academy students will no doubt be a major driving force behind solving these problems, and the upheld and exercised freedom of speech will ensure the educated and thorough discussion of the issues prior to the development and implementation of solutions.