Category Archives: First Amendment

MidPoint | Robert Muise, Attorney who represents the American Freedom Defense Initiative
Attorney who represents the American Freedom Defense Initiative in a first amendment case involving their group wanting to put signs linking Islam to Hitler on Philadelphia buses and trains....

By: NewsmaxTV

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MidPoint | Robert Muise, Attorney who represents the American Freedom Defense Initiative - Video

U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agent shuts camera off at Lukeville Port of Entry, GP013755
Customs and Border Protection Agent shuts camera off at Lukeville Port of Entry, 14 March 2015, GP013755 Part One of this First Amendment Test: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vk9UUg9lMxk...

By: Robert Trudell

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U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agent shuts camera off at Lukeville Port of Entry, GP013755 - Video

HCSO - First Amendment Audit.
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By: HONORYOUROATH

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HCSO - First Amendment Audit. - Video

George Gabel has a tie he wears on special occasions: Its red and sprinkled with many tiny American flags.

Those special occasions? He gives a grin: This is the tie I like to wear when Im arguing First Amendment cases.

Those flags, he figures, are a not-so subtle reminder to judges and anyone else of the importance of a free press and open government. Its something Gabel, a Jacksonville attorney with a courtly, soft-spoken manner, has been fighting for since the 1960s.

For that work, he was honored Tuesday in Tallahassee with the First Amendment Foundations Pete Weitzel/Friend of the First Amendment Award.

Frank Denton, editor of The Florida Times-Union, nominated Gabel for the award, calling him a warrior for the First Amendment. He cited numerous cases in which Gabel tangled with judges and politicians on behalf of the publics right to know what is going on, noting that Gabel is always there to stand up in court on behalf of the Sunshine Laws and the First Amendment.

It is a point of passion for Gabel, who likes to quote Thomas Jefferson on the matter. And he mentions a T-shirt that Judy, his wife of 52 years, bought him emblazoned with quote from Martin Luther King Jr. that reads: Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

Without a pause, he then said: One of the things that matters to me is the First Amendment and open government.

Gabel is an attorney at Holland & Knight and has an office on the 39th floor of the Bank of America Tower, where he has miles-long views of the water and land of his hometown.

Hes become something on an institution in Jacksonville. Walking through downtown toward a lunch spot last week, it was hard for him to get more than 20 yards without someone hailing him by name.

Gabel, 75, grew up in the Murray Hill neighborhood, the second of five children. His childhood was pretty idyllic, he said people seemed nicer then, and life was simpler, safer.

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Jacksonville attorney George Gabel honored as Friend of the First Amendment

First Amendment Week Eboo Patel 2 25 15 MPEG 4

By: ROAR Network

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First Amendment Week Eboo Patel 2 25 15 MPEG 4 - Video

University of Oklahoma President David Boren has expelled two members of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity on his campus for leading a horrifying racist chant. Does his decision violate their First Amendment rights? And if it does, whats wrong with this picture, in which a public university wouldnt be able to sanction students who not only bar blacks from their organization, but also refer to lynching in the process?

A public university is bound by the First Amendment because its an organ of the state. Admittedly, there is something weird about this fact, because a public campus isnt inherently different from a private one with respect to educational function and goals. Some strange free-speech anomalies can arise from treating a university like the government. For example, professors sanction speech based on its content all the time, by grading wrong answers lower than right ones. But usually free speech bars such content discrimination.

Discipline is another anomaly. A university is meant to be a community of learning, and making such a community work requires rules of decorum that are more restrictive than those that should apply in the public square. The First Amendment generally guarantees us the right to yell, scream, insult, offend, condemn and denounce. None of these forms of speech belong in the classroom, and few belong on a well-functioning campus.

In a perfect world, there might be a broad First Amendment exemption for public campuses. But there isnt so Borens decision has to be judged by First Amendment standards.

Applying ordinary free-speech doctrine, the expulsion looks unconstitutional, as professor Eugene Volokh of the UCLA School of Law has pointed out. Racist speech is still protected speech under the First Amendment, no matter how repulsive. The fraternity can be banned for race discrimination, which is prohibited conduct. Speaking in favor of discrimination, however, is generally protected.

But Borens explanation for the expulsion rests on a different theory. He said specifically that the students were being expelled for their leadership role in leading a racist and exclusionary chant, which has created a hostile educational environment for others.

The important words here are hostile educational environment. Under federal anti-discrimination law, as interpreted by the Department of Education, a university has an affirmative duty to guarantee students an educational environment in which they are free of hostility based on race or sex.

You may have heard about this principle in connection with Title IX, which prohibits discrimination based on sex. The law has similarly been interpreted by Education Department to require universities to protect students against a hostile educational environment based on sex discrimination, including sexual harassment.

In the business context, the analogy would be to an employers obligation to protect against a hostile workplace environment.

So Boren was saying that the students are being expelled not for their opinions per se, but because their speech was a form of discriminatory conduct that would create a hostile educational environment for black students. Given that the speech was literally designed to inculcate the value of racial discrimination by making pledges recite their commitment never to admit a black member to the fraternity, this conclusion seems plausible. Removing the chant leaders from campus is intended to fulfill the educational goal of creating a nonhostile educational environment.

Link:
Column: The First Amendment and the Oklahoma Racist Chant

Heres Boston College law professor Kent Greenfield, writing at The Atlanticabout the racist-chant scandal at the University of Oklahoma:

We are told the First Amendment protects the odious because we cannot trust the government to make choices about content on our behalf. That protections of speech will inevitably be overinclusive. But that this is a cost we must bear. If we start punishing speech, advocates argue, then we will slide down the slippery slope to tyranny.

If that is what the First Amendment means, then we have a problem greater than bigoted frat boys. The problem would be the First Amendment.

Catos brief inWalker v. Texas Division(the Confederate flag license-plate case) pokes plenty of fun at government censors who would protect us from offensive speech, but this is no laughing matter.

H/t Trevor Burrus

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Why We Filed a Brief Defending Offensive Speech

Nexstar CEO honored at First Amendment Awards
Nexstar CEO honored at First Amendment Awards Nexstar CEO honored at First Amendment Awards Nexstar CEO honored at First Amendment Awards abc4,abc 4,abc4.com...

By: vserlubriara1987

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Nexstar CEO honored at First Amendment Awards - Video

2015 First Amendment Awards Presenter Tim Busch of Nexstar
Executive Vice President of Nexstar discusses what it means to present the First Amendment Service Award to President Perry Sook at RTDNF #39;s 2015 First Amendm...

By: RTDNA

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2015 First Amendment Awards Presenter Tim Busch of Nexstar - Video

The First Amendment...(Historically Speaking) - Episode #19
Frederick Douglass Dixon hosts this weekly program on UPTV.

By: UPTV6

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The First Amendment...(Historically Speaking) - Episode #19 - Video