The Right to Be Free of Discrimination vs the Right to Free Speech | Medium
Let’s be clear, it is wrong to discriminate against other human beings for any reason. It is ugly; it is unfair; it is dishonorable. But it is also wrong, unfair, and dishonorable to force a person to testify against their interests; to force a person to pray to a god they don’t believe in; to…
Read MoreAmerica Has a Free Speech Problem — Response to New York Times Editorial | Medium
Suzanne Nossel, chief executive of PEN America, hit the nail on the head when she described the free speech problem in America: “There’s a crisis around the freedom of speech now because many people don’t understand it, they weren’t taught what it means and why it matters.” As a professor at Syracuse University who…
Read MoreViolent Politics and Social Media: A First Amendment Conundrum | Medium
Many are justifiably angry at the January 6, 2021 insurrectionists who defiled the US Capitol. Their message, their anger at the perceived unfairness of the election, is not being debated here. Their right to peacefully protest and to express their views, whether those views were based on facts or falsehoods, was undeniably protected by the…
Read MoreSarah Palin’s Duplicity and the Actual Malice Standard | Medium
Malice is intentional. It is designed to injure. Actual malice, a misnomer if ever there was one, is a constitutional standard applied in defamation actions that does not include the intent to cause harm. Sarah Palin is suing the New York Times for defamation, specifically libel, which is the written form of defamation; slander is the verbal…
Read MoreCensorship of the News in the News | Medium
Project Veritas has largely won the first two rounds in a lawsuit against the New York Times that goes to the very heart of our First Amendment freedoms of speech and press. Project Veritas promotes itself as a “non-profit journalism enterprise …[that] investigates and exposes corruption, dishonesty, self-dealing, waste, fraud, and other misconduct in both public and private…
Read MoreBear Spray and Speech | Medium
Certainly, those who attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021, had something to say. The exact content of their messages might have differed: some wanted to express their (mistaken) belief that the presidential election was fraudulent, others were simply angry that Donald Trump lost the election, and some were opportunists who used the false flag…
Read MoreThe Politics of Defamation | Medium
Families tyrannized by Alex Jones, far-right radio show host and founder of Infowars, recently won a libel suit against him. The families are seeking monetary compensation for Jones’ false claims that the massacre of children and staff at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in December 2012 was a hoax. (Jones has asserted his intent to appeal the…
Read MoreA Group of School Board Threats and the First Amendment | Medium
Let’s start here: since the middle of the last century, the constitutionally accepted default option is to protect speech. And one more thing, the First Amendment does not provide any guidelines for civility. Boisterous, angry, offensive speech is shielded from silence by the power of the First Amendment. It provides cover for us to annoy…
Read MoreFreedom Speaks Over the Howl of Anti-Protest Legislation | Medium
Since 2017, 36 states have enacted legislation that restricts the right to protest on public streets and rights of way. Such legislation has taken on new life in the aftermath of growing civil rights protests and current Covid-19 vaccination mandates. However, such bills often wrongly conflate the right to engage in sometimes hyperbolic, discordant, or anger-inducing speech with conduct…
Read MoreAre Mask Mandates a First Amendment Issue? | Medium
The politics of mask wearing appears to be adding to the growing celebrity of the First Amendment. Is the choice to wear a mask a statement of patriotism, or more cynically, is it virtue signaling? More plainly, in terms of the First Amendment, is wearing a mask an element of communication or is it behavior with little…
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