Know your rights, own your future.

Legal Literacy. What is it? “Legal literacy means to educate people about their legal rights and entitlements (Changmai D., Legal Literacy: Need to Go a Long Way for the Much-Desired Impression).” 

According to the 2024 Annenberg Civics Knowledge Survey, which is an annual survey conducted by the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania to measure the American public's knowledge of the U.S. government, the Constitution, and the rights and responsibilities of citizenship; it assesses how well people understand the aspects of democracy, (the three branches of government, the rights guaranteed by the First Amendment, and the system of checks and balances), “A majority of U.S. adults cannot name most of the rights protected under the First Amendment.” They stated that 74% of the people surveyed could name freedom of speech as protected under the First Amendment. The rest of the rights, freedom of religion, freedom of press, right to assembly, and the right to petition the government had 39%, 29%, 27%, and 11% (respectively). Not only do people not understand their rights that are offered protection under the First Amendment, a 2019 Article by the American Bar Association found more concerning issues. A nationally representative poll (of 1000 people) discovered that a majority of the U.S. public population had concerning and unexplainable gaps in their understanding of American government and historical documents. “One in 10 think the Declaration of Independence freed slaves in the Confederate states and almost 1 in 5 believe the first 10 amendments of the U.S. Constitution are called the Declaration of Independence instead of the Bill of Rights.” It can be reasonably assumed that adults typically hold more education, experience, and crystallized intelligence than children. Why does that matter? Suppose out of the 1590 adults that were surveyed, only a minority of them could recall (not even including overlap) and reproduce the rights that are protected under their constitution. It raises the question of what the numbers look like for children? 

But first, why does it even matter for children to have legal literacy? According to UNICEF, the lack of legal literacy and legal awareness is often the cause of delinquency. On top of that, “Legal awareness allows the child not only to refrain from illegal acts, but also not to become a victim of violence and deceit.” This means that understanding your legal rights and the protections that you are offered under the rule of law is important to educate the youth on how to avoid violation of the law and how to protect oneself if someone were to infringe upon your rights.