Jonathan Adler’s post about the ACLU’s opposing a funeral picketing ban leads me to repost my earlier piece on the subject (for links, see the original in National Review Online): Fred Phelps has pioneered the charming practice of protesting people’s funerals. It began with picketing funerals of gays while carrying signs saying things like “God […]
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AP Error About Funeral Picketing Restriction Makes Its Way Into New York Times:
Today’s story in the New York Times says: Under the Senate bill, approved without objection by the House with no recorded vote, the “Respect for America’s Fallen Heroes Act” would bar demonstrations within 300 feet of the entrance of a cemetery and within 150 feet of a road into the cemetery from 60 minutes before […]
Congress Enacts Anti-Funeral-Picketing Bill:
An AP story, as posted on the CNN site, reports: Demonstrators would be barred from disrupting military funerals at national cemeteries under legislation approved by Congress and sent to the White House…. Under the Senate bill, approved without objection by the House with no recorded vote, the “Respect for America’s Fallen Heroes Act” would bar […]
Should Public Sex and Nudity be Legalized?
Amber Taylor writes: Other people are unwilling spectators to our offensive expression and conduct all the time. I can stand on the steps of the Supreme Court and wave gory, graphic photos of dismembered fetuses at passing schoolchildren. I can wear a jacket that says “Fuck the draft” in a courthouse. I can put cartoons […]
California School District Seems To Be Violating California Law:
NBCSanDiego.com reports: In the wake of last week’s immigration-reform protests, one school district is taking drastic measures, banning all symbols of patriotism, both U.S. and Mexican. Beginning Monday, the Oceanside Unified School District is banning all flags and patriotic clothing. According to school officials, some students are using the garments and flags to taunt classmates. […]
Free Speech and Tort Lawsuits Over Attacks on Bookstores:
Here’s a tort law / constitutional law question, by the way, though please answer it only if you are a lawyer or legal researcher who is knowledgeable enough in the doctrine — I’m not looking for abstract generalities, but concrete arguments based on current American legal rules: Say that Borders or NYU decides to distribute […]
The First Amendment and Newsgathering:
Here’s a question I just posed to a con law profs’ discussion list; it strikes me as genuinely quite difficult, partly because the Supreme Court hasn’t squarely confronted what rules should apply to facially content-neutral restrictions on newsgathering (as opposed to communicating the gathered news): California Education Code 66450 provides that, generally speaking no person […]
No Controversial Speech at the College, Please:
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education — whose assertions I’ve generally found to be quite trustworthy, and which backs them up with links to original documents — writes: [Eliana] Campos’ tribulations began on March 23, 2005, when she went to [Seminole Community College] Student Activities Specialist Gail Agor to request permission to sit at […]
Arrested for Asking a Vulgar Question:
Vince Finaldi points me to the affidavit justifying the arrest of a student for asking a rude question at an Ann Coulter speech. If the facts in the affidavit are accurate, then it looks like the student has an excellent First Amendment defense. The student is not being prosecuted for heckling, in the sense of […]
Academic Freedom and Slippery Slopes:
I argued below that professors shouldn’t be fired even for expressing views that are downright evil. A big part of my argument was the slippery slope concern: That, in Justice Black’s words, First Amendment rights “must be accorded to the ideas we hate or sooner or later they will be denied to the ideas we […]
Anti-War Group Excluded from Public Park:
Reader Tim Gier points me to this story, which he found via DailyKos: A group promoting an anti-war rally was asked to leave a Broward County park Saturday morning after the park manager said political statements were prohibited on park property. . . . [A] review of the Broward County Code showed no ban on […]
“Private” Lawsuits:
A reader writes: The idea of the right to publish is only a prohibition against government interference. It does not give protection against non-government actions such as lawsuits. . . . I often hear this argument, but it’s mistaken. Lawsuits aren’t “non-government actions.” A lawsuit is decided by a government actor. If the plaintiff wins, […]
Hold the presses! Hold the chalk-printing bicycles!
My former student Eric Soskin reports that chalking sidewalks does seem to be illegal in New York, the very place where the chalk-writing bicycle is scheduled to be deployed. N.Y. Admin. Code sec. 10-117 provides: No person shall write, paint or draw any inscription, figure or mark or affix, attach or place by whatever means […]
Restrictions on demonstrations outside the Democratic Convention:
The First Circuit has just published a detailed and thoughtful opinion on the subject, which I think is probably right given the serious security risks involved, though I share the judges’ caution about the matter, and suggestion that the result might have been quite different had the facts been somewhat different. (Note also that this […]
Fortunately, it turned out he was probably just a criminal:
Is anyone else a bit puzzled by the tone of this article from the Syracuse University newspaper? Student accused of blackface use An alleged blackface incident took place over the weekend, but those involved say it could all be a misunderstanding. Just after midnight on Saturday morning, the Department of Public Safety received a report […]