The Constitution: It's Personal | Tara Hechlik Newsom | TEDxTampaBay

At TEDxTampaBay, Tara shared her experience on how the principles within the U.S. Constitution are coming alive in individuals like never before and rapidly transforming the community for the better.

Committed to strengthening communities thru education and community engagement, Tara works towards creating diverse civic leadership as a Professor at St. Petersburg College. On fire about the principles embodied within the U.S. Constitution and the power of the individual’s unique and personal contribution to civic life, Tara’s career has been spent working with multiple levels of government and within academia. Combined, she now champions the college’s civic engagement efforts.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

(Applause)

I'm here to talk about freedom
and I'm very excited about it.

Do you remember the first time
you realized that you were free?

That you're really free?

The first time I even knew
what freedom was,

I got lost in a library
and I was reading stories

about Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth,

and freedom was so clear
and so easy to understand.

And then I grew up and I got complicated
like everything else.

And I started to look for freedom
in everything I saw,

I tried to listen for it.

And one day I was driving in the car
and I heard on the radio Janis Joplin,

and she's saying that famous lyric
"Freedom is nothing left to lose."

And I thought to myself, "Is that
how I have to experience freedom?

Do I have to get to the edge,

lose everything, give everything up
to really experience freedom?"

See, freedom had become
this esoteric, cerebral idea

that I couldn't quite touch.

It was like love, right?

You can feel it, but you can't touch it,
you can't hold it in your hands.

And I read this, the great agnostic
Robert Green Ingersoll,

he wrote it beautifully when he said,

"What light is to the eyes,
what air is to the lungs,

what love is to the heart,
liberty is to the soul of man."

And I thought, "Oh, this is amazing!

I cannot get enough
of this freedom stuff."

And I kept looking for
and looking for in everything I did,

and so I went to law school.

And when other people met their partners,

I met the Constitution.

I got to know the Constitution
and I flirted with it

and I tried it on.

I explored the freedom of religion.

I tried on the freedom of speech,

and my family would say too much.

I assembled, I petitioned,
I wrote to the press, I even shot a gun.

I loved it, I loved everything
about freedom.

And what I came to find

was that freedom in the Constitution
was very personal, very intimate,

something different
than what they had taught me.

The Constitution didn't just set up
the power of government,

it didn't just set up the structure
or the architecture of government.

It spoke to me personally,

it spoke to all of us personally.

It was our guardian, it was our bedfellow.

But it wasn't until I started teaching
at an open enrollment college

where students are anywhere
from 15 to 75 years of age and even older,

and they come to a sanctuary of sorts,

it's where everyone
has access to education.

It's an amazing idea, right?

And it was really through my students

that I understood
this new emerging idea of freedom

and what I would come to understand
what freedom is now.

Let me tell you about my students
because they're absolutely fantastic.

They're gritty, they're self determined,

they're intellectually curious,

they're self-reliant,
they're absolutely beautiful.

They also carry the weight of the world
on their shoulders.

They are husbands, they are wives,
they are sons, they are daughters,

they are caregivers,

and they are seeking education
carrying all that with them.

And they come to me
and we start to talk about freedom

and we start to explore the Constitution,

and they distance themselves from freedom.

And at first, I couldn't quite tell
what was happening,

and it started to reveal itself

that freedom is a few generations
away from my students,

that hunger for freedom,

to what that feels like,

and that they also connected freedom

with some of the ugliness
and divisiveness of modern politics,

that they related the two,

and so they were shy with freedom.

So I introduced them to the Constitution,

and they came to understand
what I had come to understand.

That it was very personal to them,

very intimate.

And that the Constitution
didn't grant them their rights.

It gave them a shield, it protected them.

That they had been free all along.

And that they didn't have
to look that hard,

I didn't have to look that hard.

You don't have to look that hard
for freedom.

That it's inside of us.

And they came to know that truth

that every single person
in this room knows.

That deep inside of us,
each one of us is so magnificent,

so valuable, so unique,

that we don't need a constitution
to give us freedom.

We have it as our birthright.

Not just as Americans,
but as the human race.

And so, as students
come to know that freedom

and they try that freedom on,

they did it in unique and different ways.

But they had to come
to a realization first.

That inherent in freedom
is responsibility.

That's pretty heavy,
especially for these students

already carrying the weight
of the world around.

And responsibility has gotten a bad rap.

We think of responsibility as this weight,

and that somehow what Janis Joplin said,

that we've got to get rid
of all the duties

and get rid of all the encumbrances
in our lives to really experience freedom,

and that's absolutely not true.

And anyone of us
at traffics and responsibilities knows

that to embrace responsibility
is probably the most freeing thing

that any one of us can do,

because then you can chart
your own course,

you can set your own sail,

you can choose a life that speaks to you.

And so students,
once they discover their freedom,

once they define freedom,

they have to embrace responsibility.

And that responsibility first means
to love and respect themselves,

and then freedom directs them
to respect others,

to tolerate and to be kind
and to exalt civility.

Because freedom,
no matter what we define it as,

no matter how it comes out,

has never meant

to be less than those tenants of humanity.

And so, once they embrace freedom,

and they feel the responsibility,

it leads them to the most amazing places.

It leads them to service.

And I just want to say
that these students know,

and I know that
the Constitution is flawed,

and it's flawed in its design
and its application.

But there's a tenderness and grace
that it offers each of us.

And when you can find
that you're a bit of freedom

in the Constitution,

you can find that intimacy,

it leads you to the most amazing places.

One night, I couldn't sleep

and I did what all the literature
says not to do,

I opened my email
in the middle of the night

thinking that was going
to help me sleep, right?

And I received

an email from a student I had had
a few semesters ago.

And the email was both an apology of sorts
and a manifesto of sorts.

And in the note, he revealed to me

that he had not been sober
much of my class,

but that he was
on his 30th day of sobriety,

and that he was reconnecting with a son
as a man, as a father,

and that he was using
the one piece of my class

that he remembered about freedom
to claim his life back,

to make his life his own.

And I realized it was
that unique expression of freedom

that was really emerging.

It wasn't the stuff of government,

it was the stuff that was inside of us.

He was taking his freedom
and claiming a new life.

He was not just breaking
the bonds of government,

he was breaking the narrative

that all of us have
of past hurts, past abuses,

societal cues, disenfranchisement,
whatever comes with us.

He was using his intimate
relationship with freedom

to express himself, to claim his life.

But then, he ended with a piece

that is really the piece
that speaks to me,

that's really the piece
that I want to share with you today.

He had used his free will
to claim a sobriety,

he had used his free will
to connect with his son,

and then, he asked in closing
where he could serve others,

where could he dedicate his life.

So, as exhausted as he was,

he was seeking to serve others.

And that diversity of freedom
is seen in almost all my students.

That when they come to find freedom,

it could be the artist
that seeks to express themselves

and celebrate or heal using their art,

it could be the entrepreneur
that's seeking that economic liberty,

it comes out in all different ways,

but it always leads to the same thing.

When we define freedom,
however we define it,

it embraces responsibility
and it leads to service,

and that is the transformative nature
of the Constitution,

and it's a much different story
that any one of us have ever been told

in civics class.

So, I see my students when they come in

and they define their own freedom
for themselves,

and they embrace responsibility,

and they serve others in the community,

and they serve in our community.

That freedom of expression

adds to a national murmur
that we all are listening to right now,

that our institutions
are gracefully trying to navigate,

where we have to take these freedoms
that are individual to each of us

and they compete,

and we have to figure out
how to resolve that conflict.

And so, those freedoms of expression
are meeting that national murmur,

and they're coming together

and they're part of
this great movement of change

that we're all living through.

That freedom doesn't
just belong in the books,

it doesn't just belong in the parades,

that it belongs
to each of us individually,

and that it always drives us
to responsibility

and always drives us to service.

And that is beautiful and transformative.

And it's not just an American ideal,

it's a universal and shared idea.

So, next time, when we hear the debate

about other countries

and other individuals
seeking their liberties,

perhaps we can open ourselves

that that's not just the stuff
of economic crises,

that that is the making of human rights.

And I know that we like to see
grand gestures of change,

and that we look for these big pictures

of how the world is changing
and how freedom should look,

but I think that we see

the most beautiful expressions of liberty

in the quiet everyday
expressions of service,

and that those service change the world.

And I'm excited and turned on

to see where the whispers
of the Constitution speak to you,

how they reveal your freedom
and your service.

Thank you.

(Applause)

Elizabeth Markie: Could you stay
just a second?

Tara Hechlik: Okay.

EM: So, Tara, I would imagine

that you get asked a lot of questions
about the Constitution.

Do you mind if I ask a couple?

TH: Of course!

EM: I'm wondering
how free are we in America?

TH: This is actually a question
that a lot of my students ask

because we think
we're the barometer of freedom,

that were the gold standard, yeah?

But there's a number of indexes
that we know of

that actually indicate that,
in terms of economic liberty,

which is the basis
of a lot of our freedoms,

we're actually twelfth in the world,

and when it comes to civil liberties,

those are the liberties
that we really like,

that we're really close to,
we're actually 21st in the world.

And that's because this idea of freedom
that we're talking about,

that we're defining,

other countries have picked it up
where we started and they ran,

and they learned from those weaknesses
and those errors of our ways,

and they exalt it.

So, to answer your question,
Elizabeth, we are free,

but our colleagues in other countries

are actually developing freedom
in a much different way.

EM: I have one word.
TH: Okay, okay.

(Laughter)

EM: One more question for Tara.

Does the Supreme Court decision
regarding marriage

mean that the First Amendment
of freedom of religion isn't important?

TH: So, you've all been watching
the news, yeah?

We've got a Kentucky clerk
that is sitting in jail.

And we have a lot of rhetoric
about the freedom of religion

that somehow the Constitution
belongs to conservatives,

or belongs to liberals.

And what our Supreme Court
has said in June

is that it belongs--

liberty belongs to you,

but that no liberties
are above each other.

So that the freedom of religion
does not trump equality,

and one brand of freedom of religion
does not trump the other.

So, I think what we're discovering

is that equality
is paramount with liberty.

Right?

And that we don't have
to compete those liberties,

we just have to exalt equality.

EM: Thank you, Tara.

(Applause)
TH: Thank you.