McKinney Youth Earns Freedom Forum Award

By Tracy Cooper, McKinney Messenger - Thursday June 4, 1998

Honor stems from teen's battle over C.H.O.W. web site

Aaron Smith, 14, of McKinney has been named one of 12 recipients of the Freedom Forum's Free Spirit Award for embodying "the principles of free press, free speech and free spirit."

He will receive $10,000 cash and travel to San Francisco to accept the award June 18.

More importantly, he will join the ranks of former hostage Terry Anderson, the seven astronauts who repaired the Hubble Space Telescope and former first lady Barbara Bush for defending his First Amendment rights with his work on the fledgling Internet.

"It's a pleasant surprise after all he has been through," said Rhonda Smith, Aaron's mother.  She said the money will go toward college and called the award a "wonderful twist of fate."

Earlier this year, Aaron ran into trouble when his web site, "Chihuahua Haters of the World (C.H.O.W.)," caught the eye of Chow dog owners who chewed the ear of McKinney ISD officials.

The site, created entirely at home, his mother said, made reference to Dowell Middle School where Aaron attended the eighth grade.  The page initially began as a club for Aaron and his friends in which they poked fun at Chihuahuas.   The C.H.O.W. page ended up on a list server for Chow dogs which means that anyone searching through the Internet for information on the pedigree breed would have found Smith's page also listed.

When Chow owners contacted school officials asking that the page be removed, Aaron and other club members were called to the principal's office and asked to delete the page. When Aaron refused, he was given out-of-school suspension for the day and removed from the Emerging Technology class.

According to the discipline report, Aaron was punished for "Creating a web page implicating (a) Dowell animal hate group."

School officials also main school from his page.

The incident also caught the attention of the Freedom Forum's First Amendment Center located in Nashville at Vanderbilt University, said Gene Policinski, spokesman for the Arlington, Va.,-based Freedom Forum.

"The staff saw reports of his discipline and subsequent action through the ACLU," he said.

The organization, Policinski said, tracks cases involving freedom of speech and First Amendment issues, and Aaron's was one oin which they took particular interest.

"(Aaron) was cited for showing personal courage," Policinski said.  "At a very young age, he has shown integrity," he said.

He said Aaron clearly set a free expression principle for others to follow.

Aaron joins a dozen others who will receive the organization's highest award.

[List of Award Winners]