Freedom is not free. But learning about it can be. Last year, pro-free speech nonprofit Freedom Forum launched the First Amendment Academy to educate Americans about its favorite constitutional right. Headlining the project are easy-to-access online quizzes through a partnership with Arizona State University’s NEWSWELL initiative.
“The target audience for the First Amendment Academy is lifelong learners: people who want to continue [understanding] more about what the First Amendment is, and how important it is in their lives,” said Freedom Forum Chief Digital Officer Doug Neil. “We launched with 15 courses and 25 quizzes. … By partnering with an organization like Arizona State that immediately adds a stamp of approval and some additional authenticity [for what] we're putting out there.
“So, the First Amendment Academy is really intended to help educate people to understand what the First Amendment is about, what they’re protected by, but also to understand what the First Amendment doesn’t protect. Because there are assumptions that people make about the First Amendment that aren’t always true.”
The quizzes test general First Amendment knowledge, as well as specific rights such as religion, speech and, of course, the press. A leaderboard offers bragging rights for more competitive participants to see how their knowledge stacks up against everyone else. The First Amendment Academy also boasts three courses for each of the five rights, which can be accessed for free after creating an ASU CareerCatalyst account.
News organizations like Al.com and Times of San Diego already employ these resources in their digital reporting. Sapna Satagopan, a NEWSWELL director, said the creators prioritized making the quizzes easy to use and accounted for multiple Content Management Systems, such as WordPress.
A partner content hub allows newsrooms to share First Amendment Academy content on their own websites. Embeddable quizzes can be easily copied and pasted into a website, while social cards with similar questions can be downloaded as images and republished.
“We’ve definitely been leaning a lot on the news organization partnerships to be able to make this happen,” said Satagopan. “On their end, some of the feedback that we’ve gotten is it’s really great to be able to include it, especially as publications are especially thinking about how do we tie in all this content — I would imagine with the 250th anniversary [of the United States], there is a lot more happening on these topics. It just makes it an easier process for them to include it.”
She and Neil both say the actual results don’t necessitate any direct data on the public’s understanding of First Amendment rights. The scores are meant largely for fun, particularly since the quizzes can be embedded and taken in different contexts. Ultimately, the creators hope the First Amendment Academy will offer a free educational resource and foster further learning about a bedrock American value.
“These are ways to just help you be better informed,” said Neil. “We are hoping that we’ll get more people to engage around these, publishers to share them on their sites and their subscribers to take the quizzes to participate in the leaderboard. If people take the course, they can earn badges that show they have completed some of the courses we’ve got.
“This is one component of our overall mission, to make sure people understand the power of the First Amendment and what it does in protecting us. The quizzes and the First Amendment Academy are setting us up to reach a lot more people, but also to provide value to those folks with what they’re interacting with.”
Tandy Lau is an award-winning journalist currently based in Jersey City. He currently works as a staff reporter covering public safety for the New York Amsterdam News in Harlem. He can be contacted at tandylau1995@gmail.com
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