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Enter FIRE’s Free Speech Essay Contest for high school students!

High schoolers: Tell FIRE why free speech is important for college students, and we just might help you become one.

FIRE is pleased to once again be a partnering organization with Free Speech Week, which runs annually each fall to “raise public awareness of the importance of free speech in our democracy and to celebrate that freedom.” In honor of this year’s Free Speech Week, now is the perfect time to reflect on your expressive rights by entering FIRE’s Free Speech Essay Contest!

Open to high school juniors and seniors, you could win as much as $10,000 for a winning essay — a great reason to sit down and put pen to paper (or, ahem, fingers to keyboard)!

FIRE is a proud partner of Free Speech Week, an annual, nonpartisan event running now, Oct. 16-22.

We’re asking students to educate themselves about how FIRE defends free speech rights on campus, and then to respond to the following prompt:

Explain in 800-1000 words why free speech is so important to higher education, and why censorship undermines the ideals of liberal education and a free society.

While we know your free speech rights are truly priceless, we also know that some extra money to help pay college tuition goes a long way. Seven winners will be selected to share in $20,000 in scholarship prize money.

The deadline for entry is December 31, 2017.

Visit thefire.org/resources/high-school-network/essay-contest, where you can learn more about the contest requirements and details, and find some background material to get you started. We look forwarding to reading your entry!

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