I have the honor of speaking today at Villanova University in Philadelphia as part of their Constitutional Day celebrations. I will be speaking on the recent Supreme Court cases, including the affirmative action decision. Continue reading “Turley Speaks at Villanova on the Supreme Court and the Constitution”
Category: Academia
Another pro-life display was attacked on a campus this week with little response from the university. Students who set up a table on pro-life issues ahead of a speech by Vice President Kamala Harris were surrounded and had to be escorted to safety by campus police. What was missing was any indication that the university would punish those students who shut down the display. Continue reading “Pro-Life Display Shut Down at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University” 
We have yet another event cancelled by students who are opposed to allowing others to hear opposing views on campus. Students at Washington College blew whistles and yelled over Princeton University Professor Robertle George to prevent him from speaking. While expressing disapproval, the College has yet to announce any disciplinary action against any student.
J.B. may be the ultimate example of the National Rifle Association’s (NRA) pledge to give up their gun when it is pried from their cold, dead hands. In the case of six-year-old J.B., his gun is his hand. J.B. this week became the latest child to be suspended for pointing a finger gun. In this case, the adults at the Bagley Elementary School in Jefferson County, Alabama believed that a finger gun violated their zero tolerance policy. We have previously discussed the lunacy of the zero tolerance policies under which teachers discipline children by exercising zero thought or judgment.
Below is my column in The Messenger on the new ranking of colleges and universities on the protection of free speech on campuses. There are few surprises on the list with many of the most elite universities filling out the bottom of ranking as the most hostile to free expression. Harvard now holds the ignoble distinction of being the most anti-free speech university in the country. For full disclosure, George Washington University (where I teach) was again ranked “below average” on free speech, coming in at 185 out of 248.
Here is the column:
Continue reading “Crimson Tide: A New Study Shows the Continued Decline of Free Speech on Campuses”
We recently discussed a troubling decision from the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Porter v. Board of Trustees of North Carolina State University. The Fourth Circuit negated the free speech rights of a professor who was fired after raising objections to school policies. The case is addressed in a forthcoming law review article, Jonathan Turley, The Unfinished Masterpiece: Compulsion and the Evolving Jurisprudence Over Free Speech, 82 Maryland Law Rev. (forthcoming 2023). We now have a positive ruling for free speech out of the District of Maine where Chief Judge Jon Levy has ruled in favor of a professor terminated by the University of Southern Maine for questioning mask and vaccination policies. Continue reading “Southern Maine Professor Wins Critical Victory in Free Speech Case”
The historic Gadsden flag is at the heart of a controversy involving a twelve-year-old boy in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The child was removed from the school due to a patch on his backpack featuring the flag. The school district defended the action and claimed that, despite its historical symbolism, it is now considered racist and connected to slavery. Not only is the flag a historical image originally unconnected to slavery, but the action (in my view) contravenes core free speech protections. Continue reading “Colorado Controversy Raises Questions Over the Meaning of the Gadsden Flag [Updated]”
We have previously discussed the denial of religious expression in France for Islamic women who wish to wear abaya, Islamic swimsuits, or burkas. Many of us have lamented about how France, the cradle of so many individual rights in history, has become so inimical to those rights. France has adopted the opposite position to these rights. It has relentlessly attacked free speech (including the criticism of religious beliefs) while denying the expression of religious beliefs. The latest example is the ban announced this weekend on Muslim women wearing the Islamic abaya to school as violations of France’s strict secular laws in education. Continue reading “France to Ban Abayas in Schools”
A terrible tragedy has befallen the University of South Carolina after sophomore Nicholas Anthony Donofrio, 20, was shot and killed on the front porch of a house in Columbia. He was reportedly trying to enter the wrong home near the campus around 2 am. Donofrio lived at a house on the same street. It is an all-too-familiar pattern that we often discuss in my torts class where people are confused and try to enter the wrong home. Continue reading “University of South Carolina Student Killed in Possible Castle Doctrine Case”
Below is a slightly expanded version of my column in The Hill on the increasingly popular theory that former president Donald Trump is already barred from office under the 14th Amendment. It is a theory that, in my view, has a political appeal that outstrips its constitutional support. In a constitution designed to protect free speech and prevent the concentration of power, this theory would allow for the banning of candidates based on fluid definitions of aiding and abetting insurrection. Such ballot cleansing is common in countries like Iran where citizens await to learn which opposition candidates will be allowed to run. While we are thankfully far from the authoritarianism of these other countries, the implications of this theory for our constitutional system are still chilling.
Here is the column: Continue reading “The Disqualification of Donald Trump and Other Legal Urban Legends”
We have discussed the rise of advocacy journalism where objectivity and neutrality are discarded in favor of social justice. Despite public trust (and profits) crashing in the media, faculty members are plowing ahead with the new model of journalism to the peril of their profession. The latest such example is found in the “Solidarity Journalism Initiative” at the University of Texas at Austin. Continue reading ““Leave Neutrality Behind”: University of Texas at Austin Initiative Embraces Advocacy Journalism” 
There is a potentially significant new filing over free speech by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) in California on behalf of six California community college professors. In Palsgaard v. Christian (E.D. Cal.), the professors are challenging the new “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) regulations governing all of the more-than-54,000 professors who teach in the California Community Colleges system. Continue reading ““Persons are Either Anti-Racist or Racist”: California Sued Over New DEI Regulations”
There is a disturbing article out this week at the independent student newspaper at the University of Chicago, The Chicago Thinker. The article by Ben Ogilvie addresses growing allegations of ideological prejudice at law reviews that has effectively blackballed conservative students from the prestigious journals. The three top journals cited are Columbia (#8), Northwestern (#10), and Stanford (#1). For full disclosure, I graduated from both University of Chicago and Northwestern University. While at Northwestern, I served as a Chief Articles Editor and the Symposium Editor handling the acceptance and production of all faculty publications. (One of the first pieces that I solicited was by a young academic named Cornell West, his first law review article).
Yesterday, I posted a critical tweet about Washington and Lee University removing a plaque referring to the horse of Gen. Robert E. Lee. Traveller is one of the more famous horses in military history, an iconic animal associated with the Civil War. My tweet led to a few people objecting that Traveller had to go due to his association with the confederacy. Continue reading ““And the Horse You Rode In On”: The Cancel Culture Comes for Robert E. Lee’s Horse”
We previously followed the disgraceful record of Oberlin College, which relentlessly attacked a small family grocery for false claims of racism, even after the initial accounts were proven to be false. The college then prolonged the litigation, virtually forcing the family into insolvency. Oberlin President Carmen Twillie Ambar and the Board needlessly spent millions in litigation costs above the damages rather than admit that the college was wrong in the targeting of this grocery. In an extraordinary show of hubris, the college is now suing four insurance companies, which balked at paying the costs. It appears that, whatever the value of being an Oberlin graduate may be today, the value of being an Oberlin lawyer is virtually limitless. Continue reading “Oberlin Sues Insurance Companies for the Costs of its Abusive Litigation Against Family-Owned Grocery”