Students and faculty have chosen free speech, whether visual, verbal or written, to show their patriotism and voice their opinions about the recent events and changes throughout the nation.

Angry students staged a sit-in at the University of California at Berkley's independent student newspaper, The Daily Californian, after the paper published a political cartoon on Sept. 18 depicting two Muslim hijackers.

The cartoon shows two bearded men in traditional Muslim dress standing in a demon's hand about to be consumed by the fires of hell. Standing with a flight manual at their feet they are saying, "We made it to Paradise! Now we will meet Allah, and be fed grapes, and be serviced by 70 virgin women, and"

More than 100 students gathered at the newspaper office hours after distribution to protest the cartoon and call for an apology. More than a dozen students remained there into the early morning on Sept. 19. Police issued citations to 18 students for trespassing.

Across the country, Florida Gulf Coast University in Fort Myers was dealing with student and faculty rights to express patriotism.

Some librarians made badges with American flags and the words, "Proud to be an American." But library director Kathy Hoeth told her staff not to wear them because they might offend the 200 international students at the school.

"My motivation was to provide a library atmosphere of tolerance and respect for the university's diverse population that represents more than 50 international countries," Hoeth said in a written statement apologizing for her decision. "It was a bad decision on my part."

Once the librarians and others realized this edict was possibly in violation of their First Amendment rights, the university's president, William Merwin, stepped in to resolve the situation. According to the Naples Daily News, Merwin said Hoeth might face disciplinary action.

At Lehigh University in Allentown, Pa., a campus administrator found himself in a similar position. John Smeaton, vice provost for student affairs, told a bus driver to remove a flag from his vehicle because he thought it could make international students "uncomfortable."

Smeaton quickly retracted his decision, allowing bus drivers to display American flags if they wanted.

"In a momentary lapse of judgment, which I deeply regret, I suggested the flag be removed from inside the bus," Smeaton told Newsmax.com.

Colleges are not the only places dealing with free expression rights. Elementary and middle school teachers have been punished on two separate occasions related to the terrorist attacks.

Patricia Bowes, an art teacher at Addison Mizner Elementary School in Boca Roton, Fla., was suspended after she allowed her second-grade class to share their feelings artistically in reaction to the terrorist attacks.

Bowes was placed on indefinite suspension following a parental complaint about sketches of the attacks on New York and Washington. Some images included a brick falling on a child's head and buildings crashing down. The sketches were done on Sept. 12, the day after the attacks, as part of a project portraying students' life stories.

"The children were trying to figure it out, trying to make sense of a horrifying situation," Bowes told the Associated Press. "In no way was I intending to go against what the parents or principal administration wanted."

A Pennsylvania teacher has also fallen prey to the heightened sensitivities of school administrators, at least temporarily costing him his job.

John Gardner, a substitute teacher at Rooney Middle School in Pittsburgh, was released from his duties after a colleague saw he had scribbled the phrase, "Osama bin Laden did us a favor," on a newspaper. Four police officers escorted Gardner off the premises.