2007 Youth Scholar — Elizabeth Esser-Stuart, Alabama School of Fine Arts, Birmingham, Ala.
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Elizabeth and 14 other students wore T-shirts to school that said, “Gay? Fine by me.” The shirts had come from a diversity program started by students at Duke University.
Deciding that the shirts might be offensive, the principal began pulling the students aside and telling them they could no longer wear the shirts. Elizabeth, only a sophomore at the time, did copious legal research on the students’ constitutional right to free expression. She met with the principal several times, urging him to lift the ban. She spent her days, nights, and early mornings working in support of the issue, despite confronting apathy from friends and peers.
In December 2004, Elizabeth contacted the ACLU of Alabama which, with the ACLU Lesbian and Gay Rights Project, notified the principal that the censorship was unconstitutional. The principal lifted the ban.
In addition to the T-shirt campaign, Elizabeth has volunteered with Habitat for Humanity, FOCUS on Senior Citizens, and the Children’s Hands On Museum. Through all this, she has excelled in school and held many leadership positions including junior and senior class president.
Elizabeth plans to continue her work to protect human rights.
Elizabeth's Personal Essay:
"It isn't so much that I became more of an activist after my imprisonment, it's rather that the situation in Nigeria deteriorated to such an extent that the degree, the intensity, of my activism had to be elevated correspondingly." —Wole Soyinka
I haven't done many things in my life that amount to anything, but I certainly know when I have. There is a rush that runs through me sort of like a cold freeze after eating a lot of ice cream...but more pleasurable. There is a famine that needs sustenance in the eyes of the person who tells me their plight. I, like many people, get very excited about things in the beginning. It feels very uplifting and magical, in a way. The day is ripe as I sit in a theatre class and a twelve-year-old boy with huge eyes tells me that my school is censoring a shirt because it is associated with gays. My rage brims up from my toes and runs through my stomach before my mouth has had the time to react.
At the beginning of my sophomore year, the school's executive director censored a shirt that stated, "gay? fine by me," because he was concerned about how the message would affect the younger students. He felt that the shirt was detrimental to the younger student's education and the social environment of the school (which includes students in the seventh and eighth grades.) We met several times over the next few months to discuss why the censorship was unconstitutional. I researched other schools that had attempted to ban a certain student group from expressing themselves and cited Tinker et al. v. Des Moines and other court cases. The executive director, Mr. Northrop, listened to me but was unwilling to remove the ban.
In December of 2004, I contacted the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and asked them to help me. After several conversations, they sent a letter to the executive director that explained how his censorship of the t-shirts violated my rights as a student and was unconstitutional. He responded by requesting a meeting with my parents. My parents had several phone conversations with the ACLU attorney before we all met for the meeting. He began by telling us that he had decided, after consulting the school's lawyer, to lift the ban on the t-shirts. However, throughout the meeting he used tactics to intimidate me, and he tried to induce guilt.
I spent night after night researching cases supporting students' rights not to shed freedom of speech at the school doors. I cannot tell you how much I have learned about the government and the enigma of justice from fighting this issue with my school. I remember waking up exhausted from researching and heading into a meeting with Mr. Northrop fully equipped with a new piece of evidence or a new case supporting me, to have him look at me totally unflinchingly and say "this is a school." I maintained over and over again that yes, this was a school and it was meant for learning. In this school, especially, learning and teaching by teachers and students are meant to occur. My school would be doing its students a disservice by not teaching them about all of the people that inhabit this world. He argued that the shirt addressed a controversial issue and worried about how parents had reacted and would react in the future. He worried about offending the conservatives in Montgomery that fund my education, loosing his job and the school being shut down. As I sat in the conference room, in my baggy jeans and huge button-up shirts, I was totally naive to everything that I was getting myself into. I had no idea that from then on, I would be known as "that girl" and I would carry a slab of that identity with me, everywhere I go. Ironically I now refer back to these moments proudly with others.
The campaign to support the right to wear the shirt involved more meetings, debate and research than I had ever done. I loved all of these with the whole of my heart. I sat in that cold conference room morning after morning and wondered, bargained and tried to understand if all of this was worth it. I didn't know what IT is though. It seemed right, so I went along. Issues beyond the basic right of free speech arose during these meetings. I, for one of the first times, began to comprehend: the stature that the Alabama School of Fine Arts (ASFA) had in the state of Alabama; the privileges I as a student enjoy here; the pressure that it must take to run a school, especially a school that is run by public funds and as specialized and distinct as ASFA in a state plagued by gubernatorial candidates who want to ban books.
I spent my days, nights and early mornings working for the change — it became part of my duty to rally others in support of the issue, because as everyone knows, numbers matter. I was confronted with a huge cloud of apathy from all of my friends and peers. I fought desperately for their attention, approval, acknowledgment, and help; I faced a stone wall. However, teachers, one in particular, were encouraging. His interest kept me focused, confident and proud. I kept trucking with my highlighter and coffee flow never ceasing.
The high of winning this discussion (that turned into a battle) was absolutely overwhelming. I think that when discussing and describing this entire incident I use words like "overwhelming," "aghast," and "incredible" to describe my feelings. Oh well. I knew that if my apathetic friends could experience this feeling that they couldn't be so miserable. This rush separated me from the masses, the drones, the "Hollow Men" of society. Participating in a positive change in my community helped me clarify my passion. Risk will lead me through the rest of my life, to research the government and human rights.
Two years after the entire situation, it still follows me around like a shadow in the three o'clock afternoon. People experience the heaviness of me before they even feel my presence. My friends tell me that my responses are quick and witty and my stare holds their confidence in its grip. Underclassmen nervously hide their eyes but the bold of the bunch risk a tense, "Hey Esser." How melodramatic! I sit back two years from the beginning of all of this and don't know what to think. I know that I would do it all again. I know that being The Activist has shaded people's impressions of me. The subversive ability that dwells within me has no limitations and keeps my mind and body steady. This attribute has followed me and now, when I hear of an infringement of basic human rights, there is a rush that returns, running through my veins, urging me to act.