Moral Responsibility

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Freedom Writers explores what might be called the issue of ‘moral responsibility’. This could be described as the responsibility of every person to ‘do the right thing’. In other words, the problem of reconciling the belief that people are morally responsible for what they do with the apparent fact that humans do not have free will because their actions are causally determined (Hoven, J., Poel, I., & Vincent, N., 2011).The film shows many different kinds of bullying. The students in the class bully each other, peer pressure, the police bully the students’ parents and Erin’s father and husband bully her to leave the teaching profession. In the film, Erin Gruwell also makes the connection between the apparently small-scale bullying and gang culture within the classroom and the Nazis trying to control and then exterminate the Jews and other groups in Europe (2007). 

At the beginning of the film, most of the students hate any of their classmates who are of a different race (2007). However, they are ignorant about their backgrounds and unwilling to learn. For example, one of the Cambodian girls was once in a refugee camp. It may be that other students in her group didn’t know where she was from or the kind of journey that she and her family would have made to come to the US, or the reasons behind this kind of decision to leave Cambodia in the first place. 

Ultimately, Erin Gruwell instantly picked up on the issues present in the classroom. Her initiative with the Holocaust victims, trips, and journal writing provided a medium for these students to express themselves. This was new to the students as they are used to not being heard. Her quick tactics and persistence was able to show the students that she cared and they came first to her. This gained the respect of the students who were willing to listen and make her proud. Her challenging steps in the profession demonstrated the rewarding side with the students graduating. 

Hoven, J., Poel, I., & Vincent, N. (2011). Moral responsibility beyond free will and determinism . Springer.

(2007). Freedom writers. Hollywood, Calif: Paramount Home Entertainment.