The freedom to speak where you are.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this piece are my own and should not be interpreted as those of the rest of Gretna East Media. As a reporter for GEM, I have a direct stake in the events described below, but this piece was written independently and not at the direction or request of GEM or its staff.

Most students at my school will never publish a cartoon, file an appeal, or speak at a board meeting. That doesn't mean this doesn't affect them.

Since I was a child, I was told I would always have certain freedoms guaranteed to me—the freedom to think for myself, the freedom to read what I want, and the freedom to say what I think. I believed that for a long time. Then I learned these rights are fragile. I also learned they need to be defended, because there will always be someone trying to take them away, and the people taking them away from me weren't strangers. They were the adults running my school.

That day, we didn't just lose a cartoon, we all lost something we were told could never be taken away. Now we're defending the rights of every future journalist at Gretna East, the reader's trust in The Wingspan, and every student who has a thought they're afraid to share. The freedom to speak isn't just the freedom to speak your mind, it's the freedom to speak where you actually are and "where we are" is a student-lead newspaper. That's the right we're defending, and we aren't going anywhere.