Can I Wear This T-Shirt to School? The Changing Terrain of Students’ Free Speech Rights
By Jacob Pelletier | August 7, 2025
In 1969, the Supreme Court affirmed the rights of students to express their political opinions during school. The Tinker decision declared that students and teachers do not “shed their constitutional rights” at the “schoolhouse gate.” In 2024, the First Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a Massachusetts school could ban a t-shirt that expressed a political opinion on gender identity. Constitutional scholar Meg Mott considers whether students still have the right to free speech.
Strange Bedfellows: How Religious Liberties Have Aligned with Nondiscrimination Policies and Can Again
By Jacob Pelletier | August 7, 2025
The First Amendment protects the free exercise of religion. The Fourteenth Amendment affords all persons equal protection under the law. What happens when those two rights collide? Constitutional law scholar Meg Mott considers whether protections for religious liberties must come at the expense of non-discrimination statutes.
We often are divided on the merits of the Constitution: can it redeem us or is it a convenient cloak for white supremacy? This presentation considers how the Constitution can help us develop the habits of friendship with our political opponents through never-ending contestation.
After twenty years of teaching political theory and constitutional law to Marlboro College undergraduates, Meg Mott has taken her love of argument to the general public.
Our seasonal “Words in the Woods” program allows Vermonters and visitors to enjoy our state’s natural beauty while listening to and reading literature in the outdoors.
Humanities Camps are filled with reading and writing projects, field trips, and outdoor activities.
We won a 2020 Schwartz Prize for best public humanities programming in the U.S. for Vermont Reads 2019: “March: Book One.”
We supported the Chandler Center for the Arts’ Global Connections Youth Outreach program, which highlights artists from around the world.
Our free public events help bring the power of the humanities to communities across Vermont.
