First Amendment Day 2009

The University of North Carolina is sponsoring a number of events campus-wide on Thursday, October 1, 2009 to celebrate First Amendment Day. The Center for Media Law and Policy has prepared a web page listing all the activities that are planned, and describes the day as follows:

This campus-wide, day-long event is designed to both celebrate the First Amendment and explore its role in the lives of Carolina students. Students and others will read from banned books, sing banned music and discuss the importance of each of the rights protected by the First Amendment, the need to be tolerant when others exercise their rights and the public university's special role as a marketplace of ideas.

In 2004, Congress mandated that September 17 be designated Constitution Day and Citizenship Day to commemorate the anniversary of the US Constitution and that all publically funded educational institutions offer programming on the history of the Constitution. At UNC, the Law School offered a lecture on the Supreme Court case Korematsu v. United States, which involved the forced internment of Japanese citizens in relocation camps during World War II.