Local opinion: The Tucson community celebrates the First Amendment

Tucsonans prize our annual Tucson Festival of Books (TFOB). Thanks to the participation of authors and publishers and the hard work of many volunteers and supporters, the March 15-16, 2025, TFOB was once again a successful literature, literacy, and community event.

It was also a collective celebration of the First Amendment.

The authors

TFOB authors represented and reflected the multiracial, multicultural, multilingual, multireligious community, and society in which we read, work, and live. The presenters did not speak with one voice. They came from different backgrounds, had different life experiences, and expressed different points of view.

The authors who shared their work at TFOB were exercising their First Amendment right to speak and write freely as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. The publishers who supported their authors’ participation and those who set up vendor booths were also practicing their rights — rights that are currently under threat.

The attendees

The attendees who enjoyed the Festival also reflect the rich diversity of our community. Families guided their children to authors and activities they deemed age-appropriate. Teens had opportunities to hear from some of their favorite authors; some of whom have been deemed “controversial.” All attendees exercised their freedom to read freely by choosing from a wide variety of literary genres, presentations, and topics.

It is likely that some TFOB participants did not agree with the perspectives of some of the presenters or some of their fellow Festival attendees. Everyone had the right to seek out points of view and opinions with which they agree; they also had the right to expose their thinking to new and different perspectives — rights that are currently under threat.

The context

TFOB is held on the University of Arizona campus where students who hail from Arizona, other parts of the U.S., and locations around the globe come to study and share their unique life experiences with one another. Their coming together increases their knowledge of their similarities and differences and strengthens the multiracial, multicultural, multilingual, multireligious fabric of Tucson and our national and global society.

U of A students also had the opportunity to learn with and from diverse presenters. Student attendees had the chance to meet authors and journalists with whom they agree as well as those with whom they disagree. They had the right to confirm their understandings or reexamine their thinking — a right that is currently under threat.

The U.S. Constitution

First Amendment rights guaranteed by the Constitution are only as strong as the people, politicians, and the judicial system that protect them. Threats to “abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people to peaceably assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances” should not be tolerated. Without the First Amendment, Tucsonans could not enjoy the TFOB as we know it today.

Cases argued before the Supreme Court of the United States have affirmed and reaffirmed the rights of people of all ages to read, speak, and write and to freely access ideas and information. Whether or not you, your neighbor, or our government agrees with or disapproves of ideas found in the literature you read, no one has the right to put limits on your choice.

By participating in TFOB, authors and attendees alike have made a statement and experienced the First Amendment in action. In today’s political climate, all Americans are called upon to speak up and speak out for their right to intellectual freedom. It is up to all of us to stand firm and ensure that this foundational principle of our democracy is upheld today and into the future for the benefit of our children, families, neighbors, country, and world.

As the motto of the Freedom to Read Foundation proclaims: Free people read freely.