Declaration of Student Rights: A Satirical Academic Essay
This paper is a satirical "Declaration of Rights" addressed to a fictional "Uber Chancellor Supreme," modeled on Enlightenment-era political manifestos. Drawing on quotations from Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Edmund Burke, the author presents four student grievances: the right to smoke in designated areas, the right to adequate nutrition, the right to a fully staffed faculty and support infrastructure, and the right to pursue education in one's chosen field. The piece employs the rhetorical conventions of Enlightenment political writing to argue that students, as full members of humanity, possess natural and inalienable rights that university administrators are obligated to respect.
- Preamble: Students as Rights-Bearing Members of Humanity: Natural rights framing for student grievances
- The Right to Smoke in Designated Areas: Smoking bans as violations of liberty
- The Right to Adequate Nutrition: Proper food as prerequisite for academic success
- The Right to Faculty and Institutional Support: Faculty cuts as harm to the student community
- The Right to Choose One's Field of Study: Academic freedom as an inalienable human right
- Conclusion: A Declaration in the Tradition of the Enlightenment: Closing appeal invoking Paine's rhetoric
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What makes this paper effective
- The paper consistently sustains its satirical register — modeled on Enlightenment political manifestos — while making substantive rhetorical arguments, keeping both tone and structure coherent throughout.
- Each grievance is supported by a relevant quotation from a canonical Enlightenment or Romantic political thinker (Franklin, Paine, Wollstonecraft, Burke), demonstrating the student's familiarity with primary sources and their ability to apply them to contemporary contexts.
- The extended family metaphor in the third section effectively translates an abstract institutional argument (faculty cuts) into accessible, emotionally resonant terms without abandoning the essay's formal voice.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates rhetorical imitation — consciously adopting the conventions of a historical genre (the Enlightenment declaration of rights) and deploying its vocabulary, structure, and argumentative logic to address a modern institutional grievance. This technique requires the writer to understand not just what canonical authors said, but how they argued, and to replicate that argumentative posture convincingly.
Structure breakdown
The essay opens with a formal preamble establishing its rhetorical context and philosophical premises, then moves through four numbered grievances, each self-contained but linked by the overarching natural-rights framework. A brief conclusion returns to Thomas Paine to close the circle opened in the preamble. The numbered list structure mirrors actual Enlightenment-era declarations, reinforcing the satirical conceit while keeping the argument organized and easy to follow.
Preamble: Students as Rights-Bearing Members of Humanity
Acknowledging that there is one governor above us, we the students put before his attention — and the attention of all — a list of complaints which should, being rational and true, secure a place of prominence in the mind of any person who calls himself a rational being. This Declaration casts no blame, nor proposes injury; its purpose is only to draw attention to the God-given, natural, and inalienable rights of students. For a student is no less a person than any other — and to view students as something less than equal to any other living member of the human race is nothing but an abuse of reason and an abuse of justice.
In justice's sake, in equality's sake, and out of a fraternal bond that separates us not but links us all together in this worldwide struggle for life, liberty, and justice, we give to you, Uber Chancellor Supreme, this reminder of the fact that all students are members of humankind — and that no member of humankind should forget the rights enumerated below.
The Right to Smoke in Designated Areas
Smoking is not a crime. Yes, some people find it an offensive habit — but smokers have for some time accommodated this personal objection. By removing themselves to a separate area of the campus — where non-smokers do not have to travel — smokers can engage in that timeless exercise sanctioned by centuries of practice. To suggest that smoking should be banned from an entire campus is to suggest not only something unnatural but also something detrimental.
The concern cannot be second-hand smoke, since second-hand smoke would remain separate from those who do not wish to breathe it. The concern, then, must be to extinguish the love of smoking from the breast of students who hold it. Such an act is nothing short of tyranny — for a person may have many loves, but no one can say which is better. Even if it can be proven that smoking is harmful and ought not to be practiced, we must remember what Benjamin Franklin taught in 1775: "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" (The Quotable Franklin). Liberty is essential to the human spirit — and to sacrifice it, in this case the liberty to smoke in a designated area, must not ever be traded away for the presumed safety of a few. A nation founded on liberty will not stand when its liberties are taken away.
Works Cited
Buchler, Justus, ed. Introduction to Contemporary Civilization in the West. Vol. 2. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961.
Damrosch, David, ed. The Longman Anthology: British Literature. Vol. 2A: The Romantics and Their Contemporaries. New York: Longman, 2002.
"The Quotable Franklin." The Electric Ben Franklin, n.d. Web. 21 Feb. 2011. <
"Thomas Paine." These are the times that try men's souls, n.d. Web. 21 Feb. 2011. <
Walker, Cliff, ed. "Positive Atheism's Big List of Thomas Paine Quotations." 2008. Web. 21 Feb. 2011. <
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