Sorokin Essay Winners Named

Charlotte Dillon, a student at the Hotchkiss School in Lakeville, is winner of the $1,000 Ethel S. Sorokin prize in this year's ACLU/CFAR essay contest. Her prize was awarded by state Supreme Court Justice Richard Palmer during the annual Milton Sorokin Symposium at the University of Connecticut Law School.

Winner of the $500 second prize was Jordana Cepelewicz, a Greenwich High School student. The $250 third prize went to Kendall Witmer, also of Greenwich High.

Almost 200 entries were received this year, responding to the 2010 First Amendment Essay Question:

The confederate flag is a controversial symbol, which can mean different things to different people. When, if ever, does the First Amendment permit a public school to prevent students from wearing or displaying the confederate flag at school?

"Instead of denying students their First Amendment rights," Ms. Dillon said in her winning essay, "schools should focus on monitoring how students react to the presence of the confederate flag. While interracial schools will undoubtedly experience tension over the flag, teachers can use this hostility as an opportunity to facilitate discussions over the feelings that the flag evokes and the reasons why the constitution allows students to display this controversial symbol."