We recently discussed a controversy over a teacher being told to remove an Antifa flag and Gay Pride flag. We now have the inverse case. A teacher in Washington was told to remove a “Blue Lives Matter” flag that she put up to support her brother who was a former police officer. The flag was surrounded by pictures of her brother. She was told to remove the flag as a “political statement” that would disturb some students. These controversies raise questions of content-based discrimination over speech, particularly after the Washington teacher was reportedly told that she could have Black Lives Matter or Gay Pride flags in her class but not a Blue Lives Matter flag. Continue reading “Washington School Triggers Free Speech Fight Over Order to Remove Blue Lives Matter Flag”
Category: Constitutional Law
My column yesterday discussed the increasing trend to treat the failure to use a person’s preferred pronouns (called “misgendering”) a type of hate speech or discriminatory conduct. A new case highlights the free speech problems associated with the trend. In Meriwether v. Hartop, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit handed down a major ruling in favor of Shawnee State University Professor Nicholas Meriwether, who was disciplined for refusing to use a student’s designated pronoun choices.
We have previously discussed the worrisome signs of a rising generation of censors in the country as leaders and writers embrace censorship and blacklisting. The latest chilling poll was released by 2021 College Free Speech Rankings after questioning a huge body of 37,000 students at 159 top-ranked U.S. colleges and universities. It found that sixty-six percent of college students think shouting down a speaker to stop them from speaking is a legitimate form of free speech. Another 23 percent believe violence can be used to cancel a speech. That is roughly one out of four supporting violence. Continue reading “Heckler’s Veto: Sixty-Six Percent of College Students Say Stopping Speech Is Free Speech”
Not long after the ratification of our Constitution, the great Justice Joseph Story marveled “How easily men satisfy themselves that the Constitution is exactly what they wish it to be.” The Constitution is designed to be a type of waltz with a three rather than six-step pattern in our tripartite system of government. Many today however treat it more like an interpretative dance, an invitation for expressive individual moves. Indeed, in the last few months, President Joe Biden often seems to be dancing alone. The improvisational element to constitutional interpretation reflects more than mere political opportunism. It reflects a crisis of faith on the Constitution Day.
President Joe Biden has long pledged to “build back better” but in the last few months it has become clear that his transformative plans go beyond mere infrastructure and extend to our very structure of government.
From abortions to elections to rents, Biden is seeking to federalize huge areas to displace state law. Not since John Adams and his Federalist Party has the country faced such a fundamental challenge to our system of federalism. Continue reading “The New Federalist Party: Biden Moves Forward With the Greatest Federalization Push Since Adams”
Below is my column in the Hill on the recommendations of the anti-racism task force to “reimagine history” at the National Archives. It appears that the Archives are moving forward with warnings and other reforms.
Here is the column: Continue reading “Bubble Wrapping History: The National Archives Moves To “Reimagine” The Founding”
Justice Stephen Breyer has been a target of liberal groups for months as billboards and commentators call for his immediate resignation. It has backfired with Breyer pushing back on such pressure and reaffirming that he will stay on the Court so long as he is capable of carrying out his duties. Breyer has also opposed the same groups and a number of leading Democrats pushing for court packing. Breyer just reaffirmed his position (and that of other justices like the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg) in opposition to court packing.
Continue reading ““What Goes Around Comes Around”: Justice Breyer Again Warns Against Court Packing”
In the law, it is called an admission against interest or an out-of-court statement by a party that, when uttered, is against the party’s pecuniary, proprietary, or penal interests. In politics, it is called just dumb. White House chief of staff Ronald Klain offered a doozy this week when he admitted that the announced use of the authority of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) for a vaccine mandate was a mere “work around” of the constitutional limit imposed on the federal government. The problem is that the thing being “worked around” is the Constitution. Courts will now be asked to ignore the admission and uphold a self-admitted evasion of constitutional protections. Continue reading “Admission Against Interest: White House Chief of Staff Admits Vaccine Mandate is a “Work Around” the Constitutional Objections”
Below is my column in The Hill on the re-arrest of an Iowa man who took part in the January 6th riot. The case raises a growing concern over the way courts are weighing the political views of defendants a matter for bail and sentencing. While raising such concerns inevitably brings out an Internet mob and accusations of being a “fellow traveler,” free speech often demands the protection of the least popular individuals in our society. Many of those who long denounced the censorship of suspected Communists in the 1950s now support censorship or blacklisting of individuals on the right. Others remain conspicuously silent in the face of speech sanctions or censorship. The Jensen case reflects a new sense of license in weighing the political views of defendants in determining whether to release or to jail them.
Here is the column: Continue reading ““MyPillow Guy” Becomes a Nightmare for a Jan. 6 Rioter — and for Free Speech”
Free speech has always held a precarious position in Australia which does not have an equivalent to the First Amendment in guaranteeing free speech as a constitutional right. Despite this history, a new decision out of the High Court is still shocking in its implications for further attacks on free speech. The court ruled that newspapers and television stations that post articles on social media sites like Facebook are liable for other third party comments on those posts. The ruling, if replicated in other countries, could accelerate the censorship of viewpoints on the Internet. Continue reading “Australia High Court Delivers Major Blow to Free Speech In Defamation Ruling”
There is an interesting ruling this week out of New York where a federal court has ruled in favor of a conservative student group alleging that the State University of New York at Binghamton has engaged in a pattern of censorship of conservative speakers and events. We previously discussed the controversy. What makes this lawsuit by the Young America’s Foundation particularly significant is the allegation that SUNY-Binghamton barred events by allowing protesters to shut them down. Lawrence Khan, a U.S. district judge denied SUNY Binghamton’s motion to dismiss. I discuss this type of failure to protect public forums in my forthcoming law review article, Jonathan Turley, Harm and Hegemony: The Decline of Free Speech in the United States, Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy (forthcoming). Continue reading “Federal Court Rules Against SUNY-Binghamton in Important Free Speech Challenge”
There is an old story about a man who comes upon another man in the dark on his knees looking for his wedding ring under a street lamp. Sympathetic, the man joined the stranger on his knees and looked for almost an hour until he asked if the man was sure that he dropped it here. “Oh no,” the stranger admitted, “I lost it across the street, but the light is better here.”
The story came to mind yesterday when U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland was widely covered in pledging that the Justice Department would defend women in Texas seeking abortions. Garland appears to be answering a different question than the one raised by the new law. Continue reading ““The Light is Better Here”: Garland Pledges To Protect Abortion Clinics From “Attack””
We have been discussing a growing list of losses of the Biden Administration in court, a record that began soon after inauguration. Most concerning is the litigation of legal claims that most legal experts viewed as unsustainable given recent Supreme Court precedent. In one such case on the eviction moratorium, President Biden admitted that his own White House counsel and their favorite legal experts all told him that the moratorium would clearly fail but he listened to Professor Laurence Tribe at the urging of Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Despite the pledge to return to a respect for the “rule of law,” Biden openly suggested that they could use the litigation to get as much money out of the door as possible before being barred by the courts. They lost as many of us predicted. Now however there is a new email that suggests that the Biden Administration may have pushed another program that it viewed as presumptively unconstitutional under controlling precedent: the exclusion of white farmers under the debt relief program during the pandemic.
Below is my column in The Hill on reaction to the refusal of the Supreme Court to enjoin the Texas abortion law. The order of the Court expressly did not reach the merits and certainly did not, as claimed, overturn Roe v. Wade. The Texas law is not even the greatest threat to Roe. Not only is there a pending case on the docket of the Court that has long been viewed as a serious threat to Roe, but the White House and the House of Representatives are threatening immediate actions that could also create new challenges for pro-choice litigants.
Here is the column: Continue reading “The Appeal of Chaos: How Politicians and Pundits are Misconstruing The Supreme Court’s Order on the Texas Abortion Law”