
We recently discussed the free speech and associational implications of a Kansas teacher barred from a job due to her church’s support for the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement. Now there is a story out of Dickinson, Texas where residents were told that they had to guarantee that they do not support boycotts of Israel as a pre-condition of hurricane relief. Again, this is nothing to do with the merits of the BDS controversy or Israel. The question is the constitutionality of the federal or state government demanding such commitments from citizens to secure employment or relief.
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Pakistan’s Senate has struck down legislation last week that would have increased the minimum age girls to marry from age from 16 to 18. We have previously discussed various cases of child brides being forced into marriage under the medieval Islamic traditions and laws governing much of Pakistan. However, there was hope that the legislature would be more supportive of the basic rights of these girls. That hope was dashed when the 
As is often the case, politicians and commentators were fast to draw political meaning from the latest massacre. Of course, the most obvious explanation is that this was an attack by a demented and hateful individual. At the base of this massacre seems utter madness — untractable and unfanthomable madness. However, after saying that this was no time for politics, Hillary Clinton immediately denounced the National Rifle Association. At the same time, televangelist Pat Robertson cited the disrespect for Trump and our flag.
We have long discussed the crushing sexism faced by women in Saudi Arabia under its medieval Sharia legal system. One of the most glaring inequalities was the ban on women driving — a rule that
I just returned from a terrific event at
Saudi Sheikh Saad al-Hajari has
White supremacist Dylann Roof says that he has something of a problem on his hands: he has court-appointed counsel who happen to be Jewish and Indian. He has asked the court to replace Alexandra Yates and Sapna Mirchandani in his appeal of his death sentence for the massacre of nine people in the Emmanuel AME Church during a Bible study in 2015. Roof appears to believe that the right of counsel includes the right to white counsel. It doesn’t. The court should not be a vehicle for racial or religious discrimination to cater to the wishes of a homicidal fanatic.
Sometimes being a supporter of free speech can be really really really hard. A leading expert of “comparative jurisprudence” and Sunni cleric at al-Azhar University, Dr. Sabri Abdel Raouf, has been placed under review by his university (and 
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There is a new free speech controversy on a university campus this week. Robbie Travers, a 21-year-old third-year law student at the
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