2024 Free Expression Essay Competition Winners

PEN America is excited to announce the winners of our third annual Free Expression Essay Competition. 

Over 200 high school and college students wrote in to tell us what free expression means to them, addressing a wide range of topics like protest rights, book bans, the history of free speech, and personal experiences with censorship. Student writers took to the page to explore challenging questions surrounding free expression, and put forth strong arguments for the necessity of free expression when it comes to curiosity, discovery, empathy, and human rights.

Congratulations to our winning students!

High School Division:

First Place: Janice – $1,500 prize

Janice explains how the recent book ban epidemic ignores constitutional law in the essay “Leave Your Liberty at the Door.”

Second Place: Ahlam! – $1,000 prize

Ahlam!’s essay describes the frequent censorship she has experienced throughout her scholastic career when she tries to talk about her Palestinian heritage.

Third Place: Ivana Kiage – $500 prize

Ivana Kiage’s essay examines some historical examples where the press has stood up for free expression and how in some recent cases it has not.

College Division: 

First Place: A.Y. – $2,000 prize

A.Y. offers a meditation on how recent outbreaks of xenophobia in the United States show that those who attempt to stifle free expression are always “on the wrong side of history” in the essay “Freedom of Speech as the Antidote to Silence: Telling the Good Side of History.”

Second Place: Rebecca Tilly Ross – $1,500 prize

Rebecca Tilly Ross describes the essential role freedom of speech plays in democratic societies in the essay “Why Does Free Expression Matter in Democracy?”

Third Place: Emilie Takahashi – $1,000 prize

Emilie Takahashi documents how the newspaper industry’s continuing decline is affecting college newspapers in the essay “Depleting an Oasis in a News Desert: The Erosion of Student Journalism.”

Special thanks to our judges, including PEN America’s Free Expression Programs staff and Ryan La Sala. Ryan La Sala is a bestselling award-winning author who writes about surreal things happening to queer people. His debut horror novel, The Honeys, is in development to become a major motion picture. His most recent release is the highly anticipated Beholder. He has been featured in The New York Times Book Review, Entertainment Weekly, NPR, and Tor.com, and one time Shangela from RuPaul’s Drag Race called him cute!

We also thank all who participated in this year’s essay competition, and implore all young writers and advocates to stay passionate about the human right to free expression in a world that increasingly seeks to shut expression down. 

PEN America is deeply grateful to the John Templeton Foundation for its generous support of PEN America’s National Student Free Expression Essay Competition.