AU’s annual contest encourages students to reflect on why religious freedom and church-state separation are important to them and their communities—and what they can do to ensure religious freedom is a shield that protects the rights of everyone to practice religion according to their own beliefs, or not practice at all, as long as they don’t harm others.
Essays
- Essay length should be between 750 and 1,000 words.
- Writing should be clear, creative, and proofread; demonstrate genuine grappling with the topic; and be the student’s original writing.
- Students should fact check their writing and include citations when needed. Any form of citation or footnote is accepted.
Videos
- Videos can be recorded on your phone or any kind of camera.
- No experience or expertise is needed; videos can be as simple as talking into the camera, or more elaborate such as animated, documentary-style, fictional narrative, recording of performances such as music or poetry, or something else.
- Length must be between 2-4 minutes.
- Landscape (16:9) or portrait (9:16)
- Videos can be sent as a YouTube Video Set as Unlisted, Audience set as “Not Made for Kids.” Music for YouTube must be public domain or it will be automatically removed from YouTube during their upload/review process.
- Videos can also be sent via Vimeo, Google Drive, Dropbox or OneDrive links.
The first place essays will be printed in Church and State magazine. All the winning essays will be published on AU’s website. The first place videos will be played at the Summit for Religious Freedom. All the winning videos will be published on AU’s digital media channels including but not limited to the website, YouTube, and TikTok.