February 17, 2025
Oakland University student DeNetria Gibson-Phillips recently won the second annual OU Student Freedom of Speech Contest for a poem she submitted.
This contest, held by the Center for Civic Engagement, invites students to submit responses that address the First Amendment right of having the freedom to speech. Awardees of the contest receive a $2,000 scholarship along with their recognition.
After being encouraged to apply for the contest by personnel at OU’s Center for Multicultural Initiatives (CMI), Gibson-Phillips decided to enter on a whim.
“I just told myself, ‘You know what, I’m just gonna do it,’ ” said Gibson-Phillips, who is a junior majoring in acting. “It took me a while to actually think of what I was going to write about or how I was going to do it. I had a lot of options. ”
Students were given a lot of flexibility for the format of their submission, but Gibson-Phillips’ background with poetry inspired her to pursue this direction.
“I’ve really liked poetry from a young age. I used to perform poetry on stage all the time, and I just remember that I liked it and I liked writing it. Once I decided I was going to do a poem, the words just kind of flowed onto the page from there,” Gibson-Phillips said.
This year, the Center for Civic Engagement wanted students to address if freedom of speech in the United States should be absolute or have limitations. Inspired by the tense political climate of the 2024 presidential election, Gibson-Phillips decided to write beyond the prompt – exploring the idea that freedom of speech was not real to begin with.
“Even though we have the amendment of freedom of speech, there’s not really much we can say without it being ridiculed by another person or getting so much hate for it that it makes you not want to speak anymore,” said Gibson-Phillips.
She related this idea to her passion for theatre in her poem, saying that people only pay attention to actors when they have the spotlight on them. But without an obligation to listen to them, such as when they are off stage or in the background, they go unheard.
“Most of the time, people don’t like it when they are being shoved (into reality) and a lot of people try to shy away from the message I wrote, but (the judges) didn’t,” said Gibson-Phillips. “They seemed to really like it, and I’m happy they took it in a way where I could talk about my experiences.”