Student & Youth Rights

In school, young people not only learn about their constitutional rights but also see firsthand how those rights may be affected by the actions of others. The ACLU of Utah is dedicated to protecting students' constitutional rights and helping them understand their rights in school.

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In school, young people not only learn about their constitutional rights but also see firsthand how those rights may be affected by the actions of others. The ACLU of Utah is dedicated to protecting students' constitutional rights and helping them understand their rights in school.

Know Your Rights

(Updated March 2018)

Utah Students! Know Your Rights: A Guide for Utah Public High School Students

You'll discover what you need to know about:

  • Your Right to an Education
  • Freedom of Speech & Expression Religious Freedom
  • Search and Seizure
  • Discrimination
  • Discipline Student Records
  • Military Recruitment

View The Guide

Students' Rights: Speech, walkouts, and other protests

A resource from National ACLU. If you're a public school student, you don't check your constitutional rights at the schoolhouse doors. But whether schools can punish you for speaking out depends on when, where, and how you decide to express yourself. That's why it's essential that everyone — especially students and allies — learns about students' rights.

View the Resource

Complete ACLU of Utah Know Your Rights Resources

We have many free resources that can answer any questions about what behavior is acceptable in certain situations. Click the button below for a complete "Know Your Rights" Guides and other information that can educate you about what rights you have in certain situations.

View the Lists of Guides

The Latest

Press Release
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Let Utah Read Event 2/13 Brings Authors and the Community Together to Defend Books

Public Urged to Help Defeat New Law that Would Further Censor Books in Schools
Issue Areas: First Amendment, State Advocacy, Student & Youth Rights
Court Cases: Vonnegut v. Utah
Press Release
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Media Advisory: Let Utah Read Annual Read-in at the Capitol on Friday, February 13

The two-hour event will feature a community reading hour followed by remarks from authors and other speakers, including Representative John Arthur and author Abdi Nazemian, whose novel Like a Love Story was banned statewide in Utah in 2025.
Issue Areas: First Amendment, Student & Youth Rights, State Advocacy
Press Release
Graphic for the ACLU of Utah that reads "press release".

Maya Angelou Estate Joins Legal Battle Against Utah’s “Sensitive Materials” Law

Plaintiff Added to Suit After Two School Districts Ban Dr. Angelou’s Pulitzer Prize-Nominated Work, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings — Statewide Ban Under Consideration
Issue Areas: First Amendment, Student & Youth Rights
Court Cases: Vonnegut v. Utah
Podcast
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Books Being Banned

ACLU of Massachusetts featured our case, Vonnegut v. Utah, on their podcast Civil Liberities Minute. Listen now.
Court Case
Jan 06, 2026

Vonnegut v. Utah

The American Civil Liberties Union of Utah Foundation, Inc. (ACLU of Utah), alongside law firms Parr Brown Gee & Loveless and Spencer Fane, LLC, filed a lawsuit in United States District Court for the District of Utah on behalf of the Estate of Kurt Vonnegut, award-winning authors Elana K. Arnold, Ellen Hopkins, and Amy Reed, and two anonymous Utah public high school students. By disregarding the literary value of age-appropriate books and removing them, Utah is trampling on the protections guaranteed by the First Amendment. Utah’s Sensitive Materials Law, originally enacted in 2022 and amended in 2024, requires public schools and their libraries to remove a wide range of literature under unconstitutional, overbroad criteria imposed by the state legislature. Among the books removed are major award-winning and best-selling works, including Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five, a National Book Award winner and one of Time Magazine’s “100 Best English-Language Novels,” and Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye. Many of the banned titles target voices that have historically been silenced, authors of color, women, and LGBTQ+ writers. These removals include Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner; Elana K. Arnold’s What Girls Are Made Of, a National Book Award finalist; and Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, a Pulitzer Prize nominee whose author received both the National Medal of Arts and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.