First Amendment

March 2, 2020|Bias Response Teams, Campus Censorship, FIRE, First Amendment, Free Speech, Free Speech on Campus

Bias Response Teams Silence Civic Debate

A statue of George Washington on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin (shutterstock.com)

Bias response policies rarely emphasize free speech, opting instead for stern, admonitory lists of “no go” topics subject to administrative questioning.

September 12, 2019|First Amendment, Telescope Media Group v. Lucero

How Progressive Free Speech Law Makes Some Citizens More Equal than Others

by John O. McGinnis|

Carl Larsen, co-owner of Telescope Media Group (Image: Alliance Defending Freedom).

The dissent in Telescope Media Group v. Lucero offers a glimpse at the progressive vision for the future of the First Amendment.

May 16, 2019|Everson v. Board of Education, First Amendment, Philip Hamburger, Separation of Church and State, Steven K. Green, The Third Disestablishment

A Strict Separationist Speaks

by Mark David Hall|

Separationism's decline began some 40 years ago, in response to ecumenicalism, social welfare legislation, and the rehabilitation of the Catholic Church.

March 8, 2019|First Amendment, Freedom of the Press, Hugo Black, regulating speech

Hugo Black’s Misreading of the First Amendment

by James R. Rogers|

Exterior view of the Newseum in Washington, D.C., with engraving of the First Amendment (Anthony Correia / Shutterstock.com).

Justice Black’s “absolutist” reading of the First Amendment, while celebrated, is not consistent with the actual text of the First Amendment.

March 5, 2019|Allison Stanger, First Amendment, Heather Mac Donald, Michael Paulsen, Northwestern University

Why The Proposed Trump Order on Free Speech Is Misguided

by John O. McGinnis|

Royce Hall at the University of California, Los Angeles (Ken Wolter/Shutterstock.com).

Issuing this order about free speech will not make it less likely that progressives will continue to misuse executive authority for their own purposes.

February 14, 2019|Establishment Clause, Everson v. Board of Education, First Amendment, Fourteenth Amendment, Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission v. American Humanist Association, Permoli doctrine, Slaughter-House Cases

The Court Should Tear Down Everson, Not the Maryland Cross

by David Upham|

Does this Maryland cross violate our Constitution? That very question is currently before the Supreme Court.

October 18, 2018|Abraham Baldwin, First Amendment, Religious Liberty

A Connecticut Yankee in Georgia: Abraham Baldwin and the Establishment Clause

by Mark David Hall|

Statue of Abraham Baldwin on the campus of the University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia (Ken Wolter/Shutterstock.com).

There are excellent reasons to oppose state involvement with religion, but originalist arguments are not among them.

September 3, 2018|Diversity, First Amendment, Higher Education, John Stuart Mill, Keith Whittington, Speak Freely

A Defense of the Neoliberal University

by James Stoner|

(image: Jose Gil / shutterstock.com)

Keith Whittington on how to recover the American university as a place of free inquiry and intellectual rigor.

August 14, 2018|Anti-bullying, First Amendment, Separation of Powers, Trump Justice Department, University of Michigan

The Trump Administration and the Speech Bullies

by Greg Weiner|

(image by Ken Wolter, shutterstock.com)

Perhaps we ought to give this administration credit where credit is due.

August 3, 2018|Charles Koch, David Koch, First Amendment, Ideology, Liberalism, Tom Steyer

How the One Percent Improve Democracy

by John O. McGinnis|

Logo of Koch Industries, Inc. (360b / Shutterstock.com).

The Koch Brothers and other members of the one percent improve democracy by giving voice to views that partisan politicians neglect.

A Mirror of the 20th-Century Congress

by Joseph Postell

Wright undermined the very basis of his local popularity—the decentralized nature of the House—by supporting reforms that gave power to the party leaders.

The Graces of Flannery O'Connor

by Henry T. Edmondson III

O'Connor's correspondence is a goldmine of piercing insight and startling reflections on everything from literature to philosophy to raising peacocks.

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