A Philadelphia cop got a lot too full of himself and a deputy district attorney failed an inteligence test when they arrested and then charged, respectively, Anthony Riley with singing in a public park. Riley, 20, had faced a three month sentence after loudly singing "A Change is Gonna Come" in Rittenhouse Square in downtown […]
This week's Supreme Court ruling on student speech started to set some boundaries on what teens can and can't say on campus. For the record: Can't: "Bong Hits 4 Jesus." (According to the Supreme Court today) Can: A seventh-grader from Vermont was suspended for wearing a shirt that bore images of cocaine and a martini […]
There's a couple of good reads on free speech -- or lack thereof -- online. The first comes from George Will and who notices the so-called heckler's veto at work in Oakland. Some African American Christian women working for Oakland's government organized the Good News Employee Association (GNEA), which they announced with a flier describing […]
Yesterday, the Supreme Court handed down two decisions with implications for free speech. In each case, the Court seemed to make its decision not based on any constitutional principles, but on getting the right outcome. The first case is the famous "Bong Hits for Jesus" case. A Juneau, Alaska, high school student unfurled a banner […]
Every time I read something worth blogging about, I keep it open in a separate Firefox tab until I get around to it. I don't always get around to it in a prompt manner, so here's some interesting reads from the past week or so, so I can close some of these tabs. Sci-Fi author […]
Over at the Volokh Conspiracy, Eugene Volokh notes a decision by a California State Appeals Court upholding the free speech rights of a student newspaper at Novato High School. A trial court judge originally ruled that speech "likely to cause a violent reaction" was not protected free speech. The trial court judge was essentially enshrining […]
Do you remember when liberals once stood for free speech and educational freedom against those who sought to censor unpopular views? Neither do I. It was a very long time ago. On Friday, Tufts University, in the heart of Blue State Massachusetts, ruled that a satirical advertisement pointing out some inconvenient truths about Islam is […]
The Washington State Supreme Court smacked down several governmental entities that sought to silence supporters of an initiative that would've repealed a hike in the state gas tax. The municipalities targeted several radio talk show hosts who used their air time to support the initiative and required them to file campaign finance documents classifying the […]
Apparently the judges on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals are a bunch of masochists; they love the repeated beatings laid down on them by the Supreme Court. The latest case is Faith Center Church Evangelistic Ministries v. Glover. Quin Hilyer of The American Spectator explains: In its decision, the 9th Circuit majority determined that […]
I've been wanting to point out this op-ed piece by one of the lawyers in the case of Harper v. Poway Unified School District, but haven't got around to it. For those who haven't been following the case, Tyler Chase Harper was sent to detention for wearing a T-shirt in response to the Gay, Lesbian, […]