By Brady Sheaffer ’18 and Amanda Cohen ’18, Staff Writers

On January 20th, 2017 the nation swore in the 45th United States President, Donald J. Trump. The official proceedings for the Inauguration began at around noon in Washington D.C., where both Mike Pence and Donald Trump took the Oaths of Office and the new president presented an inaugural address.

Similar to the election, the inaugural address will be hotly contested as tens of thousands of protesters voiced their discontent. According to the National Park Service, they gave out 22 permits for First Amendment protests during the inauguration week that ranged in size from 50 to 200,000 people. This is a considerable increase compared to past inaugurations which averaged around half a dozen permits for these First Amendment events. Unlike Obama’s initial inaugural address which drew over 1.8 million people in 2009 and forced the city into gridlock, the expected turn out for Trump’s address was around 800,000-900,000 people, but despite this lower count, an unprecedented 3,200 police officers were part of the parade, providing security. In addition to the various protest groups, there were reports of over 50 House Democrats  boycotting the address due to the feud between future president Donald Trump and Congressman John Lewis. Recent news stories such as these have created significant tension leading up to this inaugural address, but the transition from President-Elect to President of the United States went smoothly.

In the past, the Newark Academy community has gathered in the auditorium to live stream the presidential inauguration as a collective group. While it is evident this election has proven to be particularly controversial, especially within our school community, we believe it should be required for Newark Academy students to watch the inauguration. We live in a country that prides itself on values of progress and change, and therefore think it would be hypocritical to turn our backs on America during such an important time in history. While it would be unfair to deprive a student of his right to an opinion on the new president, merely watching the inauguration is a sign of respect for our community and our country.

When interviewing several Newark Academy students, Anthony Giachin ‘17 said “such monumental changes only happen every four years and it has the potential to change the entire course of our nation and regardless if you agree with the new elected president or not, he is still going to be our leader for the next four years, so I think it is imperative that everyone be a witness to the symbolic shift of power and the first address to the nation as president by Donald Trump.”  Tyler Friedman ‘17 said, “I think it’s important that NA gives students the option/opportunity to watch the inauguration if they choose to, but I don’t think it’s necessary to require students to watch. As long as students are aware of what is going on and the importance of the inauguration, they should be given the choice to watch or not.”

This conflict of ideas raises an interesting debate about the extent to which the freedom of choice be expressed in order to defend one’s political rights while still giving respect to the administration and the future president of the United States. Although the administration is within its boundaries to make attendance at the inaugural address mandatory, it is important that we view this as an opportunity rather than a restriction. This opportunity is one that our school is blessed with as we, along with the rest of the nation, witness a country being united under democratic ideals through a peaceful transfer of power. Ultimately, the importance of the inaugural address should not be reduced to the semantics of political beliefs, but instead it should be recognized by our student body that we have the opportunity to witness something of such high value and significance: the swearing in of our new president.