HS Students Inspired to Register to Vote

by Justin Karpinos, high school dean of student life

The past two weeks at USN have brought some very pointed challenges to engage in our democratic process, and the HS students have responded with marked enthusiasm.
On January 13, we  welcomed Justin Bautista Jones, a Fisk University junior and student activist, for our MLK Assembly program sponsored by the Office of Diversity and Community Life.  Jones, who is Chairman of the Nashville Student Organizing Committee, has advocated for student voting rights and risked arrest in the process of challenging what he described as the Tennessee state legislature's attempt to disenfranchise certain voters, particularly those who are young, poor, or people of color. 
 
"In the state of Tennessee, you can vote with a gun license, but not a student ID," Jones said.  "If I work as a teacher or a janitor for a college, I can use my ID to vote, but not if I'm a student." Jones' message of not taking our citizenship for granted brought a standing ovation from the high school.
 
Then last week, sandwiched between last Wednesday’s unexpected day off and the Snowpocalypse of 2016, the HS welcomed U.S. Congressman Jim Cooper to our Assembly, on behalf of the Mayor’s Youth Council High School Voter Registration Initiative. 
 
Three USN students currently serve on the Mayor’s Youth Council: senior Siobhan Haase, junior Lauryn Cravens, and sophomore Jackson Joffe.  The connection between the two programs was not lost on anyone--we went from one young person's experience of trying (unsuccessfully) to vote to our opportunity to vote.
 
Joffe and Haase introduced the MYC and the Initiative, and Lauryn Cravens shared some shocking statistics that drove the MYC to plan the High School Voter Registration Initiative.
 
“When we learned that only 2% of young people aged 18-24 voted in Nashville’s 2015 mayoral election, we knew something had to change,” she said.  “We decided to become a part of MYC’s group that was committed to raising the youth vote in the coming presidential election.” 
 
Congressman Cooper followed, challenging USN students not to succumb to the dumbing down of the national dialogue that exists in the age of social media and the 24-hour news cycle.  His suggestion was that engagement of young voters could change the political prospects.
 
“Respectable newspapers, like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, used to be written at the twelfth grade level.  Certain ones--that I don’t want to name--were written at more like the seventh grade level.  Now, we see that many are written at the third grade level,” Cooper said.  “You’ve got to expect more, and you've got to read and think critically about what's going on in the world.”
 
Cooper then fielded questions about his own political career and explained why this year’s presidential primaries are vital, especially here in Tennessee where our primaries historically have come so late that they’re essentially irrelevant.
 
Yesterday we welcomed representatives from the Davidson County Election Commission, who set up shop outside the Hassenfeld Library Lobby.  They reported 102 new voter registrations, with 95 of them coming from our student body!  With many of our senior class expecting to vote absentee in the 2016 general election, this in-person registration was essential in negotiating the strange new waters of becoming engaged citizens.

A HUGE thank you to Siobhan, Lauryn, Jackson, Student Council president Kate Tanner, and senior class president Emily Baker for spearheading the effort--their preparation and leadership were absolutely essential. 
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University School of Nashville models the best educational practices. In an environment that represents the cultural and ethnic composition of Metropolitan Nashville, USN fosters each student’s intellectual, artistic, and athletic potential, valuing and inspiring integrity, creative expression, a love of learning, and the pursuit of excellence.