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Indoctrination, Orthodoxy and The First Amendment | Medium
Whether it comes from the right or the left, viewpoint discrimination is poison to democracy. And these days, it is coming from both sides. It is positively Orwellian — each side hopes it can exorcize words and phrases from the lexicon and thereby purge unwanted perspectives from our collective thoughts. Each seeks to cancel the…
Read MoreA Battle for the Soul of Our Schools | Medium
The current debates about appropriate curriculum and constitutional boundaries inside the classroom are nothing less than a fight for the soul of the educational system in the United States. As Anya Kamenetz, explained in her New York Times essay, the public school system as we know it today was designed as a public good, an inclusive and diverse…
Read MoreHistory Should Serve as a Guidepost to the Supreme Court, Not a Straitjacket | Medium
The simple truth is, the policy impact of the New York gun case recently decided by the Supreme Court, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen (Bruen), is not likely to be significant. Even Justice Thomas’ decision as further refined by the concurring opinions of Justices Kavanaugh and Alito, seemingly provides ample space for regulation…
Read MoreIncitement to Violence and The Big Lie | Medium
The work of the January 6 committee serves as a masterclass on the power, potency, and purpose of the First Amendment: to subject all ideas, bad and good, to review and debate as an exercise in discovering the truth. But as some of us watch the televised hearings, we might wonder if the First Amendment…
Read MoreAnother Win for the First Amendment | Medium
In a working democracy, the people retain rights and the government exercises power. The government is often called upon to assert its power when individual rights clash: my right to speak, even to speak hatefully, vs your right to live a life in the pursuit of happiness; or my right to own a gun vs…
Read MoreThe 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…
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