2026 Winner Announced!
With fifty-five entries, it was hard to find a winner.
Also check out about our other scholarships.
About Our 2026 Written Speech Scholarship
California Freethought Day believes that secular rights, science, social justice, civic engagement, and the First Amendment should be celebrated, and wants to support students as they continue their education.
To further that goal, we've launched a written speech scholarship contest for high school students in California.
We awarded $1,000 to a student who addresses this prompt in the form of a 300-500 word written speech:
Pretend that you’ve been invited to speak in front of the California State Legislature. Write a 300–500-word speech to convey your ideas about the importance of information literacy.
The Winner
Last year I read a claim that caught me off guard, so I followed its footnote. It led to an article. The article cited a press release. The press release cited a study. I found the study. It said the opposite of what the original claim argued. Finding the source took four clicks and eleven minutes. Somewhere between the study and the claim, the meaning changed. Not at any one step but at all of them.
The distortion is not the lesson. The lesson is that nobody was inclined to look. Every source was public, a simple click away, but the truth sat there unnoticed; all but four clicked away.
Nobody checked. Nobody was ever going to.
California courts do not admit evidence unless someone can account for where it has been and who handled it – chain of custody. Yet, we don’t have this chain of custody for the information and beliefs that shape who we are as a person. We hold a piece of evidence in court to a standard we don’t hold ourselves to. Almost everything any of us knows arrived without one.
That is what information literacy is. Knowing how you came to know.
Ten years ago, the State Auditor told this Legislature that California ranked last in the nation in students per teacher librarian. The subject those librarians teach: information literacy.
Since then, this Legislature has passed both media and AI literacy into the curriculum – both without opposition and without funding. But, when a bill to create a statewide school library lead was proposed, it died in Senate Appropriations.
Of the California schools that reported having a library last year, fewer than one in four had a credentialed librarian. Eight hundred forty-eight, for six million students. The state's own standard is one for every 785.
I am asking this Legislature to fund the positions, not the task force. California does not need another revision of the framework we all know can work. Instead, we need salaries for the one adult whose whole job is to teach a child where knowledge comes from.
It took me four clicks and eleven minutes to run an article from its footnote to its source, and I only knew to try because someone taught me to. Teach a twelve-year-old to spend the eleven minutes to find the source of information and she will use it for the rest of her life. She will use it in a jury box, an exam room when a doctor says something that doesn’t sound right.
Information literacy is much more than a curriculum; it is a habit that lasts a lifetime.
Thank you.
The distortion is not the lesson. The lesson is that nobody was inclined to look. Every source was public, a simple click away, but the truth sat there unnoticed; all but four clicked away.
Nobody checked. Nobody was ever going to.
California courts do not admit evidence unless someone can account for where it has been and who handled it – chain of custody. Yet, we don’t have this chain of custody for the information and beliefs that shape who we are as a person. We hold a piece of evidence in court to a standard we don’t hold ourselves to. Almost everything any of us knows arrived without one.
That is what information literacy is. Knowing how you came to know.
Ten years ago, the State Auditor told this Legislature that California ranked last in the nation in students per teacher librarian. The subject those librarians teach: information literacy.
Since then, this Legislature has passed both media and AI literacy into the curriculum – both without opposition and without funding. But, when a bill to create a statewide school library lead was proposed, it died in Senate Appropriations.
Of the California schools that reported having a library last year, fewer than one in four had a credentialed librarian. Eight hundred forty-eight, for six million students. The state's own standard is one for every 785.
I am asking this Legislature to fund the positions, not the task force. California does not need another revision of the framework we all know can work. Instead, we need salaries for the one adult whose whole job is to teach a child where knowledge comes from.
It took me four clicks and eleven minutes to run an article from its footnote to its source, and I only knew to try because someone taught me to. Teach a twelve-year-old to spend the eleven minutes to find the source of information and she will use it for the rest of her life. She will use it in a jury box, an exam room when a doctor says something that doesn’t sound right.
Information literacy is much more than a curriculum; it is a habit that lasts a lifetime.
Thank you.
Cameron Kim
Fullerton, CA
Sunny Hills High School
Description coming soon.
For More Information, Contact, and Questions
Questions regarding the scholarship can be directed to scholarships@FreethoughtDay.org.