We have been following the rapid decline of free speech rights in Europe and Canada. Germany has long been the subject of criticism from the free speech movement. The country has long criminalized speech dealing with World War II and the Nazis. While the real benefit of those laws has been questioned given the long existence of a neo-Nazi groups in the country, prosecutors continue to bring troubling charges against those who voice unpopular or obnoxious beliefs in prohibited areas. The latest is Ursula Haverbeck, an 87-year-old German Neo-Nazi grandmother who has been sentenced to 10 months in prison after being found guilty of denying the Holocaust. She does not believe that the Holocaust was real but, rather than leaving the matter to open debate, the Germans are imprisoning her for either not changing her mind or not staying silent about her views.
Category: Academia
Free speech advocates are increasingly uneasy about the response of University of Missouri to protests of racism on campus. Some of the incidents described by students are exercises of free speech. Those concerns were heightened with the videotape of a communications professor harassing and trying to get students to “muscle” out a student journalist. This concern was heightened even further by police asking students to report “hateful and/or hurtful” speech. We have been discussing the erosion of free speech on our campuses and the message seemed to invite the type of speech regulation that has been on the rise. Citizens are allowed to say “hurtful” things without being forced to answer for their exercise of free speech. Monitoring and punishing hurtful statements threatens the most basic values of free speech in our universities. For those with controversial views, the police policy must have had the same feel as Mass communications professor Melissa Click calling for a show of “muscle” to target journalists. A complaint was filed by the student journalist against Professor Click who has now resigned her position.
Continue reading “University of Missouri Police Tell Students To Report “Hurtful” Statements”
Today I will have the pleasures of speaking at The Federalist Society’s 2015 National Lawyers Convention being held at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C. The theme for this year’s convention is: The Role of Congress. I will be on a panel entitled “Administrative Law: Agency Rule: How Congress Can Reclaim its Legislative Authority” starting at 2 pm in the State Room. I will have the honor of speaking with Hon. Tom Coburn, Former United States Senator, Oklahoma; Mr. Christopher C. DeMuth, Distinguished Fellow, Hudson Institute; and Prof. Michael Uhlmann, Claremont Graduate University. The panel will be moderated by the Hon. A. Raymond Randolph, U.S Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.
Continue reading “Turley to Speak Thursday At Federalist Conference In Washington”
I was returned late last night from a wonderful visit to Abington Pennsylvania where I had the honor of serving as the 33rd Frobese Lecturer at the Abington Hospital outside of Philadelphia. This is an extraordinary tradition started to honor an extraordinary man of medicine. While the Frobese lecturer is usually a medical doctor, the staff broke from that aspect of the tradition to allow a J.D. to join the staff for the purposes of delivering the three speeches associated with Frobese day. It was a great experience not just to get to know the staff of this amazing medical center but to visit this lovely part of the Pennsylvania.
The controversy surrounding the resigned of University of Missouri System President Tim Wolfe this week. Critics continue to debate whether Wolfe acted in a way that warranted demands for his removal while others view racial incidents on campus as the fault of the Administration. This is a worthy debate for any university. However, a recent incident should raise equally determined calls for the removal of school officials who appear to have led attacks on the media and free speech as part of student protests. Mass communications professor Melissa Click has since apologized for disgraceful conduct in attacking the media — a curious act by a mass communications professor and the antithesis of an academic committed to free speech.
Ella Fishbough, 14, is now an eighth grader with a record. Ella was given suspension by Jackson Heights principal Sarah Mansur-Blythe (left) for a hug. That’s right. She hugged a friend who was having a bad day and was immediately reported for discipline under a hopelessly undefined prohibition on “inappropriate or obscene acts.” As with the other story today of the student suspended for playing Power Rangers, this is a case of blind application of rules without any sense of judgment or fairness. It is part of the zero tolerance culture that has taken hold in our schools.
Continue reading “Eighth Grader in Florida Disciplined For Giving Hug To Friend At School”
We have another absurd enforcement of the zero tolerance rule at our schools. This one occurred in Cincinnati, Ohio where Principal Joe Crachiolo, (left) at Our Lady of Lourdes School (a Catholic Elementary School) suspended a first grader who was caught playing a Power Ranger and used an imaginary bow and arrow in play. Just to repeat. This was a first grader and an imaginary bow and arrow.
We have followed the continuing failure of the public school systems in cities like Detroit and Washington D.C. where students are graduating without basic skills or ability to compete in the new economy for valuable jobs. Instead, they are left without any meaningful chance to break the cycle of poverty that often holds them in a stagnant social strata. The most recent review of Detroit demonstrates just how badly we have failed these children. The 2015 National Assessment of Educational Progress tests published by the Department of Education’s National Center for Educational Statistics shows that 96 percent of eighth graders are not proficient in mathematics and 93 percent are not proficient in reading. This is the result despite spending approximately $14,743 per student in the school system.
A Happy Halloween to all of the ghouls, ghosts, witches, or mere enablers on our blog! Tonight promises to be frenzy of trick or treaters in Virginia with great weather.
There is an interesting controversy brewing between academics and Jewish groups in Germany as the deadline approaches for the end of the copyright over Hitler’s “Mein Kampf”, the book that laid the foundation for the Nazi takeover and ultimately the genocidal crimes of World War II. For seven decades, the copyright has rested with with Bravarian officials who have prevented the publication of the work. Now, academics are arguing that the book should be reprinted due to its obvious historical significance. However, Jewish and other groups are demanding a continuation of the ban on reprints.
Continue reading “Mein Copyright: Controversy Erupts Over The Reprinting Of Hitler’s Infamous Work”
The video below has caused a public outcry after a South Carolina school resource officer identified as Richland County Sheriff’s Department Senior Deputy Ben Fields is shown tossing a female high school student to the floor and dragging her from a classroom after she refused to get up and leave with him. Fields has been placed on paid administrative leave.
There is a new example of how free speech values are declining in England, particularly on college campuses this week. Students at Cardiff University launched an online petition trying to bar Germaine Greer, the Australian feminist author, from speaking at the school next month because of her views on transgender women. Rather than recognize that Greer has an opinion to share as part of the pluralistic academic forum, these students sought to bar her from sharing her views and engaging in a debate in the area. To its credit, the university has thus far stayed committed to free speech and refuses to bar Greer.
We recently discussed the sentencing of a political dissident in Saudi Arabia to being crucified and beheaded under the Kingdom’s medieval Sharia-based legal system. Now, as if to reaffirm the Kingdom’s opposition to basic human rights and freedoms, the Kingdom has reportedly sentenced a professor and activist to to 10 years in prison and barred him from traveling abroad for another decade. Abdel-Karim al-Khadar, a professor of Islamic studies from conservative Qassim Province, has been under arrest for over two years (since April 2013) for criticizing religious extremism and fighting for women’s rights. That is enough to jail you in the Kingdom, a country that remains one of our closest allies.
The annual Torts versus Contracts paintball teams have met on the field of battle for the 2015 charity competition and I am thrilled to report that Torts emerged victorious — tying the competition now 2-2 over the last four years. It was a sweet victory given the two-year slump for Torts. As in prior years, it was extremely close and came down to the last game but legal descendants of Learned Hand overwhelmed those of Karl Llewelyn in the final minutes.
Continue reading “TORTS WINS 2015 CHARITY PAINTBALL COMPETITION OVER CONTRACTS”
Everett Middle School in San Francisco’s Mission District is teaching its students a thing or two about democracy . . . or the lack of it. Parents were informed by Principal Lena Van Haren (left) that the winners of the recent student elections would not be announced (or possibly honored) after the election failed to produce a sufficiently diverse selection. The school is composed of 80 percent students of color and 20 percent white students. The students however appeared to pick their representatives based on their individual qualifications rather than their race and that was a problem for Van Haren who told parents that the results were “concerning to me because as principal I want to make sure all voices are heard from all backgrounds.”