Many teenagers are indifferent to the First Amendment. In a nationwide study of 100,000 high school students released early this year by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, about three-quarters of those surveyed said they either don't know how they feel about their First Amendment rights or they just take them for granted.

The Bill of Rights and the Constitution outline the rights that U.S. citizens have and how those rights are protected. But do all of those rights apply equally to youth? In a society where children are unable to vote for who runs the country, and where young voices are undervalued in the political discourse, what rights do we have, and how are they protected?

The experienced fingers of 20 women crochet strands of plastic into one-of-a-kind gifts in a shop in Porto-Novo, Benin's capital. These women, led by Grace Dotou-Aboh, began their business, Qui Dit Mieux?, in 1996. They collect plastic bags littering Benin's streets, clean them and transform them into beautiful purses, bags and dolls. The group has received international recognition for raising en

Editor's note: In early March, Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura met with House Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry Hyde, R-Ill., who promised quick action on the Hmong veterans bill. Minnesota is home to 70,000 Hmong. When was the last time a newspaper story reported about youths fighting for their parents' rights? Six girls in St. Paul, Minn., are doing just that. Cindy Xiong, 12; Mary Lee Vang, 15; M

Indiana teens hoping to earn their driver's licenses face many restrictions. They must wait until they are 15 years old to get a learner's permit and then until after they turn 16 to take the test that could give them the right to drive alone. Those rules may appear to be a logical way to prevent accidents, but not everyone supports them. In fact, a nonprofit organization, Americans for a Society

In the past two years, Indianapolis city government has passed laws setting a curfew and attempting to ban youths from playing violent arcade games. Do these laws violate children's rights? Many kids aren't sure. Late last school year, Y-Press talked with fifth-graders from Indianapolis Public School 60 to find out what they knew about their rights. To Akilah Shahid, Lauren Strode and Timothy Eldr

Elie Wiesel is an author and survivor of the Holocaust whose accounts of the Nazi concentration camps earned him renown, and whose efforts on behalf of other oppressed peoples earned him the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize. Craig Kielburger is the teen-age founder of Free the Children, a multinational organization dedicated to defending the rights of needy children around the world. Although these two are

When hundreds of street children stormed the Brazilian Congress in 1987, they didn't know that their actions would make a difference. Three years later, Brazil enacted the Child and Adolescent Statute guaranteeing that the state, the family and society would provide Brazil's children with full human rights of life and health, while safeguarding them from discrimination and abuse. But when Y-Press

True love and Carolyn Baugh brought Tarek al Basti to the United States, but they didn't live happily ever after. While in Egypt as an exchange student, Baugh met Basti. They fell in love and were married. After the couple moved to Evansville, Basti worked hard at a restaurant and eventually saved enough money to buy it. He became an American citizen. Needing workers, Basti sponsored family and fr

Many educators, parents and students were alarmed at the results of a recent survey on the First Amendment. The study commissioned by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation High School Initiative wanted to see how thousands of high school students and faculty viewed the First Amendment in a post-9/11 world. The findings from the "Future of the First Amendment" survey, released Feb. 1, showed t

I n June 1964, three civil-rights volunteers disappeared in Philadelphia, Miss. In early August, 44 days later, police found their bodies buried in an earthen dam. The activists -- Michael Schwerner, 24, James Chaney, 21, and Andrew Goodman, 20 -- did not share a final resting place. In the '60s, no cemetery would take both blacks and whites. The three were part of the 1964 Freedom Summer, an effo