Beginning My Research Process

This is my first blog post of Summer 2021 and a lot has already happened in the first month of doing my research. I have begun looking at cases that may be pertinent to my research question. I began by looking at some cases that relate to free speech in general like Frisby v. Schultz (1988). Then, I began looking at cases that relate to student speech. Based upon my preliminary findings when looking at cases involving student speech, I believe that these cases will be especially important to rely on in this process. One case I have looked at involving student speech is Morse v. Frederick (2007). That case involved high schoolers sporting a “pro-marijuana” banner at the Alaska school. A second case I have begun looking at is Healy v. James (1972). This case involved a university not allowing a liberal leaning group to become an official organization at their institution because of a chapter at another university turning “radical”. Finally, I looked at cases that were specific to signs and displaying the signs on private property and in windows since this is the specific way that public universities have limited student expression.

My work is just getting started and there is a long way to go but I can acknowledge that this first month of research has been difficult and I think it is important to mention the challenges that arose. The first problem I encountered was trying to balance my academic life and my personal life. I have made it a priority to continue to meet up with friends from college throughout this first month of the summer. Another complication I had to balance is satisfying my service-learning requirement for graduation. An opportunity presented itself to be a possible chance for me to satisfy this graduation requirement and if it works, I intend to take it. The balancing of everything has made the summer research a little more complicated than I originally anticipated it to be.

In the next month, I am committed to finishing looking at the cases that are pertinent to this issue and organizing the information in a way that makes everything more streamlined and easier to read. I am going to continue to maintain communication with Dr. Kasper throughout this process and turn to him for guidance when I need help, especially with the presentation aspect of the research. By the next time I blog, I hope to have most of my research completed and move on to the presentation side of my research question.