stand against the weight of the FirstrnAmendment.rnAbove all the rhetoric surrounding thernuniversity policy, the specific activities ofrnany particular group, or the precedentrnfrom the United States Supreme Court,rna simple principle remains strong: governmentrncoercion in the areas of freedomrnof speech, freedom of association,rnand the freedom to exercise one’s religiousrnbeliefs cannot be tolerated—especiallyrnat our public educational institutions.rnStudents must never allow a smallrngroup of individuals, utilizing the heavyrnhand of government, to trample overrnthese rights. They have a right—arnduty—to fight any system which compromisesrnthe integrity of the FirstrnAmendment.rnJames Madison perfectly addressesrngovernment coercion: “Who does notrnsee . . . [t]hat the same authority whichrncan force a citizen to contribute threernpence only of his property for the supportrnof any one establishment, may forcernhim to conform to any other establishmentrnin all cases whatsoever?” Underrnthe guise of “diversity,” the universityrnforced us to conform to an unethical, unnecessary,rnand unconstitutional system.rnWe exposed them. We questionedrnthem. We fought them. We won. Wernpray that we will prevail at the SeventhrnCircuit as well, thus giving students thernright to exercise the freedoms guaranteedrnby our Constitution.rnScott Southworth recently graduated withrnhonors from the University of WisconsinrnLaw School.rnHomegrownrnby Katherine DaltonrnThis speech was delivered in April at thernWebb School, a private secondary schoolrnin Knoxville, Tennessee.rnItry not to put on airs about what I dornfor a living. I would never tell you thatrnwriting is dignified enough to be called arnprofession, like being a doctor or an architect.rnWriting is a trade, or to use arnbetter word, a craft. It does, however,rntake a lot of work to become any good atrnit, and while I am not a good writer yet Irnam getting a little better with practice,rnand I take comfort in that.rnOne thing I have learned from makingrnmy living writing is that cliches arerndeath. They don’t just ruin your prosernstyle. They are rotten shortcuts peoplernuse instead of thinking, or to keep othersrnfrom thinking, or sometimes to lie.rnWhen somebody who is brightrnenough to speak clearly starts using bigrncliches, or talking in meaningless sentences,rnwatch out. I will give you an example:rnWhen I was an undergraduate atrnYale, I ended up party to suit against thernuniversity. It was a classic First Amendmentrncase: certain parties at the universityrnwere trying to put our magazine out ofrnbusiness because they did not like the articlesrnwe printed. It is a long story I willrnnot go into now, but my point is that thernfirst lawyer we hired might as well havernbeen speaking Hindustani to us. Hernalways explained what he was doing inrnlanguage that was absolutely incomprehensible.rnAll of us who had brought the suitrnwere very young at the time, students orrnrecent graduates; we were inexperienced,rnand we thought the problem was with us:rnwe thought we could not understand ourrnlawyer because the law was so complicatedrnand we were so ignorant. But werneventually discovered—and we discoveredrnit the hard way, in briefs and inrncourt—that we could not understandrnthe lawyer because he was not sayingrnanything understandable. He was notrncompetent.rnThese days one of the biggest clichesrnaround, one of the great buzzwords ofrnthe past decade, and one which getsrnmore popular by the minute, is “global”rn—the global economy, the global village,rnthe global market, I am sure yournhear it all the time. Maybe someone hasrntold you that you need to learn computerrnprogramming or Chinese in order tornprepare for a global career. I can think ofrnperfectly good reasons for doing both ofrnthose things, but the globalization ofrnyourself is not one of them.rnYet people are adamant about globalism.rnThey say the world is getting smaller,rnnobody stays in one place anymore orrneven one country, the times are changingrnand we have to change with them. Certainlyrnthe way technology and telecommunicationsrnhave affected our personalrnand working lives is astonishing. Butrnpeople who say these things want us tornbelieve that we have little or no power tornshape our lives, that we must bow to faternin the form of international trade agreementsrnand transatlantic telecommunications.rnAnd really, that is globaloney.rnYes, if a volcano erupts in Hawaii wernwill see changes in our weather. If GreatrnBritain dumps nuclear waste in thernNorth Sea, it will poison our fishing andrnour seas. But you do not live in Ukrainernanymore than you live in Mexico, or evenrnWashington state. You live in Knoxville.rnYour character is being shaped by thisrnplace and the people in it more than anyrnother place or any other people, whetherrnyou like it or not. Your primary ties, andrnyour primary responsibilities, are to thernpeople and the land that you live amongrnhere. As Kentucky writer and environmentalistrnWendell Berry observed aboutrnthat beautiful photo of the Earth takenrnfrom outer space, and I am paraphrasing:rn”Look at it. And try to find your neighborhood.”rnWe do not live in the “world.” Mostlyrnwe live, eat, sleep, shop, go to school, gornto church, hang out at the mall, all withinrna radius of a few square miles. Therernis no such thing as a global village; that isrna phrase with no meaning. A village is arnfew hundred people living together,rnnot a few billion. In a village you canrnknow everybody. We could not take inrnall the names and faces and personalitiesrnand problems in the world even if wernwanted to.rnWhen I first moved to New York inrnthe mid-80’s, I found myself making eyerncontact with most of the people I passedrnin the street, the way I had always donernat home and at school. It seemedrnstrange to me that at the end of my walksrnI felt emotionally drained. Only after arnfew months did I realize that I was makingrneye contact with too many people. Itrntakes a puff of emotional energy to interactrnwith another person even that littlernbit, and in passing hundreds of people arnday I was exhausting myself.rnWe can loosen or lose old ties and responsibilitiesrn—it is not that hard to leavernour families behind and move away to arncity where nobody knows us. But onlyrnwithin very tight limits can we gain newrnones. If I were to move to Paris tomorrow,rnnever in my whole life could Irnbecome a Parisian. I would always be arnforeigner living in Paris, and no driver’srnlicense or new citizenship papers wouldrnchange that. Even if I moved tornKnoxville, at best in 20 or 30 years Irncould call myself a thoroughly rootedrntransplant Tennesseean. But still I wouldrnalways be a Kentuckian. I would still rootrnfor UK.rnWe are local by fact and by necessityrn—and as far as I am concerned that is arngood thing, for a lot of reasons. We dorn46/CHRONICLESrnrnrn